More than 1,500 unaccompanied children who entered the U.S. illegally have been placed with sponsors in New Jersey this year, federal officials announced Thursday.

New statistics released by the Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families show 1,504 unaccompanied children were placed in the state from Jan. 1 through July 7. A total of 30,340 were placed nationwide.

The announcement did not indicate where in the state the children have been placed or what country they came from.

The U.S. is battling a surge in the number of children who have been crossing the U.S.-Mexico border alone, fleeing violence in Central America, thinking they will be allowed to stay. Most have come from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

The number of immigrant children placed with sponsors in New jersey is among the highest in the nation but far below Texas, which had 4,280 placements this year, and less than California, Florida, Maryland, New York and Virginia.

During a town hall meeting this week, Republican Gov. Chris Christie said he had not received any notice from federal officials about children being placed in the state.

Marcos and Crisly, Ana and Blanca, Fabiola and Maria Antonia.

The youths were among 20 from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala who were set to appear in federal immigration court Tuesday for initial deportation hearings. But they weren't there — 18 of the children whose cases were set to be heard didn't show up Tuesday for court.

It was an absentee rate that federal Immigration Judge Michael Baird said was "highly unusual," so high that he reset the hearings for Aug. 11 rather than possibly issuing a deportation order.

Baird said he was concerned that the children may not have received proper notice of the hearings from the government. Attorney Lynn Javier, with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, agreed that it was "prudent" to reset the hearings.

The judge's decision drew praise from local immigration lawyers. Paul Zoltan, an immigration attorney in Dallas, called the decision "classy," saying the children would have time to get attorneys and any mailing errors could be corrected.

The NY Times reported:

Hoping to stem the recent surge of migrants at the Southwest border, the Obama administration is considering whether to allow hundreds of minors and young adults from Honduras into the United States without making the dangerous trek through Mexico, according to a draft of the proposal.

If approved, the plan would direct the government to screen thousands of children and youths in Honduras to see if they can enter the United States as refugees or on emergency humanitarian grounds.

Administration officials said they believed the plan could be enacted through executive action, without congressional approval, as long as it did not increase the total number of refugees coming into the country.