Predictive Forecasting of Care Load & Placement Demand-01

The Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), operates in a high-uncertainty environment where sudden shifts in border activity and enforcement policies can rapidly alter the volume of children in federal care. Historically, decision-making relied heavily on descriptive, retrospective reporting rather than proactive forecasting.This research paper develops and evaluates a predictive-analytics pipeline using 1,075 continuous daily observations spanning January 2023 through December 2025 to forecast daily HHS care load and discharge (placement) demand.