US Marshals rescue 200 missing children in six weeks

The U.S. Marshals Service rescued and located 200 missing or endangered children over a six-week period, the agency announced Monday.

Operation We'll Find You 2 focused on several high-risk cities such as Phoenix, Arizona, and Miami, Florida, where children have gone missing, she said.

“Any time a child is missing, whether we can't explain how they disappeared, whether we think it was a family abduction or a runaway, whether they're at risk of being trafficked, whether they're at risk of being harmed, we have to take that very, very seriously,” U.S. Marshals Service Director Ronald Davis told reporters Monday.

The Marshals worked with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to help find and locate the children they were assigned to recover.

The number of children saved is still in its early stages, Davis said.

With NCMEC's ​​technical assistance, 123 children were removed from dangerous situations and 77 were recovered to safe locations, the agency said.

“Our children are our most precious asset,” he said. “We have to make sure that they all have the opportunity to grow up in a safe environment. I think that’s our duty.”

Davis said the Marshals Service has conducted the operation six times before this one and has so far located 546 children in 2024, which is higher than last year at this time but lower than the nearly 950 children recovered in 2021.

Michelle DeLaune, president of NCMEC, said her organization is “incredibly grateful” for the work of the Marshals Service in locating missing children.

The Phoenix area had the highest number of children rescued during the six-week period, authorities said.