Since 2021, migrant children have been traveling alone to the United States in record numbers: Nearly 400,000 children have crossed the southern border by themselves, most of them fleeing extreme poverty.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for placing these children with adult sponsors. While about a third of the children are reunited with parents in the United States, the rest live with other relatives or even strangers.
The New York Times analyzed H.H.S. data to determine the areas of the country with the highest concentrations of migrant children sent to sponsors who are not their parents.