The Lost Children of Biden's Border Crisis
Friday, June 12, 2026
You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for June 11, 2026.
We open with one of the most disturbing stories we've covered — federal officials have located 146,000 unaccompanied migrant children who entered the country during the Biden administration and disappeared into a broken government tracking system. Nearly half a million unaccompanied children were transferred into federal custody between 2019 and 2023, and the government lost track of three out of every four of them. Over 32,000 failed to appear for immigration court hearings — children who legally don't even have the capacity to be responsible for that. We point out that some sponsors used the same addresses and names over and over to claim multiple children — a hallmark of trafficking networks — and that acting Attorney General Todd Blanch confirmed this program was exploited for sexual assault and trafficking. We make the case that this level of failure isn't incompetence. It's a feature, not a bug, of an administration that prioritized volume over accountability — and we ask where these children go to get their childhoods back.
In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, President Trump paused another round of attacks on Iran after announcing a breakthrough in negotiations, with a final deal expected to be signed in Europe as early as this weekend — including guarantees Iran will never possess a nuclear weapon and that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen to shipping without Iranian tolls. Then the CEO of ActBlue refused to answer questions during a congressional hearing, repeatedly citing attorney-client privilege and Fifth Amendment protections amid allegations of fraudulent campaign donations including foreign contributions. And a Michigan court overturned the conviction of one of the men accused of plotting to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, ruling that kidnapping isn't a violent felony under Michigan's terrorism statute — we revisit the role the FBI itself played in organizing that plot.
We also cover New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani attending the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden with a roughly $1,000 standing-room ticket — despite running a campaign built on taxing the wealthy and claiming he'd have to move back in with his parents due to financial strain. We make the broader point about socialism and its leaders — the people at the top always seem to find their way to the good seats while telling everyone else to live within their needs.
Our American Mamas Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson tackle the question of whether MAGA is dead, as several prominent former Trump-aligned commentators have recently suggested. They point to Trump-endorsed candidates sweeping primaries in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Texas as evidence the movement is alive and well, and discuss the pattern of high-profile pundits — Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens — making abrupt reversals after years of consistency, while Trump's messaging has remained the same. They draw a comparison to Ann Coulter's earlier break with Trump over the border wall timeline, suggesting some of these breaks come from single-issue voters whose patience ran out on one specific promise.
We dig into the controversy over whether ICE enforcement should pause during the World Cup — with activists arguing that immigration enforcement makes undocumented immigrants feel unsafe attending games. We point out the absurdity by comparison — nobody argues pickpocketing laws should be suspended during the Super Bowl. In our Digging Deep segment, we cover the case of a Somali World Cup referee who was denied entry into the United States after Customs and Border Protection flagged his connections to Al-Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda affiliate — and his own social media posts containing antisemitic statements. We walk through why this isn't about ethnicity, despite Al-Shabaab itself issuing a statement calling it racial discrimination, and why a country has every right to keep people connected to designated terrorist organizations out, regardless of their profession.
We also cover the first arrest from a new federal fraud task force's top-10 most-wanted list — a $100 million bank fraud case in Orange County involving falsified title insurance documents and altered digital metadata.
For our Bright Spot, a new study out of the University of Maryland School of Medicine and published in the Annals of Family Medicine found that patients who received five minutes of intercessory prayer — including the laying on of hands — experienced significantly greater pain and anxiety reduction than those who listened to faith music or meditation, with benefits lasting up to six weeks. Remarkably, the results held regardless of whether the patient receiving prayer was a believer — what mattered was the faith of the person doing the praying. We connect it to the biblical example of the centurion asking Jesus to heal his servant, and note that researchers are now suggesting intercessory prayer become standard medical practice.
And we close with Jimmy Kimmel mocking Spencer Pratt over losing his home in the LA wildfires by renting him a U-Haul — which we call exactly what it is, shameful — and the congressional baseball game, where Republicans beat Democrats 11-2, with Florida Rep. Greg Steube striking out five batters and Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt named MVP for a diving catch that left him bloodied. May your pursuit of happiness bring you joy.
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