hundreds of thousands of children that you were responsible for are still missing today. A hundred thousand of them are under ten years old.
OverstatedSteve Hilton, at California Governor General Election Debate (CNN)
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Why we checked itSpecific claims that hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children are still missing, with 100,000 under age ten — a serious, verifiable assertion about government accountability and child welfare outcomes
What we foundThe 'hundreds of thousands missing' figure has some factual basis in government reports, but the specific sub-claim of '100,000 under ten years old' is not supported — the closest official figure cited under-12 children at approximately 58,000 — and the characterization of all these children as 'missing' is itself disputed by credible sources.