Immigration and Customs Enforcement is considering establishing a new call center, in part to make it easier for them to track immigrant children with the help of local and state law enforcement.

The pitch was laid out in a government contracting document known as a “request for information,” which outlines the broad strokes of a potential project. The RFI was posted Tuesday night; Reuters first reported it Wednesday.

The document says ICE has an “immediate need” to establish and maintain a call center “using data-enabled technology to receive and process 6,000 to 7,000 calls per day” to coordinate with local law enforcement officers around the U.S. who are working with the Trump administration to enforce its immigration policies ― including those “focused on locating Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC).”

“Unaccompanied alien children” is the government’s term for children who come to the United States on their own, without a parent or legal guardian, and without legal status. Upon arriving in the country, they’re initially held in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees a network of shelters.

Most are eventually placed with a family member or another vetted sponsor, though the time spent in government custody has shot up for children during President Donald Trump’s second term. Those who were discharged from ORR custody in September spent an average of 186 days in government custody, up from 35 days last October, according to HHS figures.

Under the Trump administration, children released from government custody also increasingly face the risk of being re-detained and sent back through the shelter system if they, or the family member or sponsor with whom they’re staying, encounter law enforcement. By June, around 500 children had been taken into government custody after so-called welfare checks, including in circumstances where federal agents took enforcement action against kids’ sponsors, CNN reported in June, citing three unnamed sources.

The proposed call center would support the 287(g) program, which effectively deputizes local law enforcement for various immigration enforcement tasks, including arrests. The program has exploded under the current administration, as hundreds of local and state law enforcement organizations sign on to cooperate with ICE. Recently, Texas state troopers were deputized through the program.

Workers in the center would field inquiries from local 287(g) partners in the field, cross-check them against government databases, and “confirm enforcement actions in the field,” according to the RFI. The center would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, though certain functions would follow a 40-hour week, according to the document.

An overview for the call center says that one of those functions would be “integrating and leveraging 287(g) resources focused on locating Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC).”

It would “provide 287(g) partners and Field Offices with UAC targeting focus and material,” “track 287(g) partner UAC location results and reporting” and “liaison with Juvenile and Family Management Division” ― a reference to the office tasked with accounting for children and families in ICE custody.

The document doesn’t provide specifics about the role the call center would play regarding children. Other sections concerning adults encountered by law enforcement, however, say the center would provide “confirmation for appropriate enforcement actions” and help “reduce the Non-Detained Docket size” ― referring to people with cases in immigration court who are not currently in detention.

The call center would begin initial operations in the Nashville area by March and full operations by June, the RFI said. The RFI is an initial step, meant to help the government solicit information about market conditions and contractor interest. With an RFI, the government can meet one-on-one with those who submit information in response to the post. Tuesday’s RFI asked vendors to detail the kind of technology they would use “to integrate partner and alien data with our systems to maximize call efficiency and reduce call time,” as well as a list of estimated milestones to reach initial operability by March.

A formal solicitation for services, known as a “request for proposals,” may follow.

In response to questions about the contracting document, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin sent HuffPost a four-word statement: “Your reporting remains incorrect.” McLaughlin didn’t specify further or respond to follow-up questions.

McLaughlin gave the same statement to Bloomberg and The Guardian when it reported on the proposed call center.

Bloomberg quoted Neha Desai, managing director at the National Center for Youth Law, who said she has seen children arrested following routine traffic stops.

“These children are then re-detained in a system that has become nearly impossible to exit,” Desai said.

Trump has been ramping up pressure on immigrant children for months.

In the early weeks of the administration, an internal ICE memo reported by Reuters and The Guardian laid out an effort to track down certain unaccompanied children, specifically, those deemed a “flight risk” or risk to public safety, or those with “executable orders of removal.”

That memo, published in February, detailed how ICE agents would create “target packets” for unaccompanied children who had left government custody. It contained a reminder for agents from ICE’s two main divisions, Enforcement and Removal Operations and Homeland Security Investigations.

“ERO officers should remember they are to enforce final orders of removal, where possible, and HSI will pursue criminal options for UAC who have committed crimes,” it said. “Final orders of removal” are deportation orders approved by immigration judges.

A few weeks later, the White House moved to strip funds from a legal aid program that represents tens of thousands of children in immigration court proceedings. The funding has been temporarily restored by the courts, but the legal fight continues.

In September, ICE attempted to quickly deport dozens of Guatemalan children, despite there being no evidence that the children’s parents sought their return to the Central American country. A judge blocked that action, too.

And just a few days ago, reports emerged of ICE offering financial compensation ― the promise of $2,500 ― to unaccompanied youth, including those who’d been placed with sponsor families after arriving in the United States, in exchange for their pledge to give up their right to pursue a legal case to stay in the United States and “self-deport.”

Separately, the administration also recently pursued a policy to lock up unaccompanied immigrant children once they “age out” of ORR custody, when they turn 18, according to a legal complaint over the policy filed by The American Immigration Council and the National Immigrant Justice Center.

A judge ruled in 2021 that ICE should place people who have aged out of ORR custody in the “least restrictive setting available,” which, the filing argues, is a ruling the new policy violated. The judge agreed, granting a temporary restraining order and prohibiting ICE from transferring children to adult detention facilities when they turn 18 without first considering other options.

The Trump administration has repeatedly said that it is focused on immigrant youth because it is concerned about human trafficking. The February memo also laid out investigative efforts to “ensure UAC are not subjected to crimes of human trafficking or other exploitation.”

Trump and others in his administration have long claimed that the Biden administration “lost” some 300,000 children. But that’s not true. That number comes from a report that was tallying 291,000 children who simply never received a court appearance notice from the government.

While labor and sex trafficking does occur among undocumented youth who arrive in the country alone, the Trump administration regularly misrepresents how common that is. At the same time, the administration’s efforts to defund legal representation for undocumented youth offer real harm by taking away trusted adults to whom children can report abuse.

What’s more, critics say the increased scrutiny on unaccompanied kids and their sponsors in the United States, including targeting sponsors for arrest, will have the same negative impact as the expansion of the 287(g) program: making undocumented people wary of interacting with law enforcement, even when there is real criminal wrongdoing to report.

Michael Lukens, the executive director for the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, told ABC News, “The [call] center will not protect children. It will only serve to make it easier to deport them.”