The Justice Department charged three people in Ohio with running a wide-ranging conspiracy to smuggle unaccompanied migrant children into the United States, part of a crackdown officials say could reach thousands of similar cases nationwide.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced a 19-count indictment against Maritza Azucena Cahuec Coc, Carlos Cahuec Coc, and a third co-defendant, unsealed Wednesday in the Northern District of Ohio. The charges include conspiracy to encourage and induce illegal alien entry, making false statements to federal authorities, and identity theft. Blanche said the defendants fit a pattern the DOJ now calls "super-sponsors," adults who take custody of three or more unrelated unaccompanied minors, many of whom are then trafficked for labor or sexual exploitation.
When federal agents executed a search warrant at Maritza Cahuec Coc's Ohio residence, they found 13 people inside, including four minors, according to DOJ press materials. Investigators say she used aliases and provided false information to the Department of Health and Human Services in at least 12 separate instances to sponsor and receive custody of unaccompanied children through the federal resettlement program. The scheme generated hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to NewsNation, which described her as a Guatemalan national who listed her occupation as a cleaner.
Blanche used the announcement to signal the Ohio case is not an isolated prosecution. The Justice Department is currently tracking 15,500 open super-sponsor cases tied to hundreds of thousands of minors smuggled into the country between 2021 and 2024, according to DOJ figures released at Wednesday's press conference. Blanche and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin jointly announced the initiative, directing all 93 U.S. attorney's offices to prioritize criminal cases against sponsors accused of trafficking, fraud, identity theft, and harboring illegal aliens.
The super-sponsor problem took shape during the Biden administration's surge in unaccompanied child arrivals, when the Office of Refugee Resettlement prioritized releasing children quickly over verifying who was receiving them. Senate Judiciary Committee findings published in 2024 confirmed that from January 2021 through early 2022, roughly 11,500 migrant children were placed with unvetted sponsors who were not fingerprinted or cleared through background checks. HHS also failed to provide DHS with accurate addresses for more than 31,000 unaccompanied children, and law enforcement officials estimated those addresses were wrong roughly 80 percent of the time, according to Congressional documents.
The consequences became public record. A February 2023 New York Times investigation found that roughly 85,000 unaccompanied children placed with sponsors under the Biden program had effectively gone missing, meaning the government had no verified contact with them. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa led oversight investigations and accused the administration of ignoring trafficking warnings from its own staff. An HHS whistleblower testified before the House Homeland Security Committee in November 2024 that career officials raised alarms about vetting practices that senior Biden appointees dismissed.
A National Enforcement Campaign
The current DOJ effort is the most sweeping federal attempt to hold sponsors criminally accountable. By directing all 93 U.S. attorney's offices to treat these cases as a priority, Blanche is converting what had been scattered prosecutions into a coordinated national campaign. The Ohio indictment, with its 19 counts and named defendants, is designed to serve as a public example of what that campaign looks like in practice.
The children at the center of these cases were placed through a federally administered program designed to protect them, and prosecutors allege the defendants systematically corrupted that process for profit. No finding of guilt has been made, and the defendants will have the opportunity to contest the charges at trial. With 15,500 open investigations and 93 federal districts behind the effort, additional indictments are expected in the coming months. Whether courts uphold the super-sponsor framework as a prosecutorial tool will shape the reach of this crackdown for years to come.
Also read: DHS locates 146,000 unaccompanied migrant children lost under Biden • HHS Opens Formal Probe of CAIR Over Terror Ties and Misspent Afghan Funds • State Department launches $750 premium visa program to cut interview backlogs
