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The scenes have been all over the news.
In Colorado, ICE smashes the window of a car with a 1-month-old inside, his mother crying out, “There’s a baby in here!”
A family of four in Chicago is surrounded at Millennium Park by heavily armed and masked immigration agents, while the 8-year-old daughter clutches her doll and sobs. The mother holds her 3-year-old son while all of them are detained.
A 6-year-old, her 19-year-old brother and mother are stopped at a immigration check-in in New York and detained.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a 13-year-old recently in Massachusetts and whisked him away to Virginia.
These incidents are not exceptions, but a common story. In the New York City area, for example, ICE has detained at least 50 children.
Though immigrant youth have been targeted, U.S.-born Black children have not been spared. About 300 federal agents executed an immigration raid, resulting in shocking and heartbreaking scenes in a South Side apartment building in Chicago. Crying children being led out of their apartment as it was tossed. When community members in Chicago denounced the zip-tying of children, who were also separated from their family members, an ICE officer was overheard saying “f— those kids.”
In addition to the initial violence of the stops, children have been incarcerated in spaces not made to hold them. Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana is designated for adult males but has had at least 18 children detained between January and July. Meanwhile, even facilities designed to imprison families have major problems, including delayed medical care for children, extreme temperatures and undrinkable tap water — and the government is charging children and families money for bottled water.
The administration is also arguing in court to reduce the protections on detained children, including limits on how long they can be held and requirements of providing sanitary conditions for children.
In parallel to the abuses within the immigration enforcement system, the government is trying to fill youth incarceration facilities by encouraging “tough on crime” approaches, even when crime is the lowest it has been in decades. President Trump recently claimed in Washington that “caravans of mass youth rampage through city streets at all times of the day” — which is not true.
Instead of policies that reduce crime, we get this rhetoric of locking up “bad children.” After a significant drop in the last two decades, youth incarceration rates are increasing. Racial disparities in youth imprisonment are the widest they have been in decades, even though crime is at historic lows. Youth behavior has not become more violent, but adult reactions to youth behavior have become more punitive. More laws and policies actively punish young people for minimal infractions.
The administration is also seeking to remove youth from their homes and put them into government custody. These “welfare checks” are at times being done by FBI or Homeland Security agents instead of those trained in social welfare. And yet once youth are in government custody, they are not protected.
Targeting communities of color and immigrant communities, the Trump administration is using every tactic it can dream up to break apart families. One initiative dubbed “Freaky Friday” offers children in custody up to $2,500 to leave the U.S. Originally slated for young people as young as 14 years old, this payment would theoretically be made after “an immigration judge grants the request and the individual arrives in their country of origin.” But it would be extremely difficult for young people to receive any such payment from the government after reaching their country of origin. Worst, this program’s financial pressure on vulnerable children disregards the dangers they faced when they fled their homes in the first place.
Moreover, the administration attempted to deport a large number of Guatemalan children over Labor Day weekend, with at least 76 children being boarded onto planes, and possibly more en route, before a judge issued a restraining order.
Such actions have left immigrant children languishing in government custody, whether in detention facilities, hotels or group homes, for longer periods, instead of being reunited with family.
Violent arrests, dangerous detentions and prolonged incarceration show that the purposeful criminalizing of immigrants and Black folks is not only harmful to adults but also traumatizes children. Just witnessing a parent’s arrest can have negative mental health impacts on young children. When a youth is arrested, their life outcomes are negatively affected, including an increase in chances of leaving school, higher rates of depression and suicidal thoughts. Youth who have experienced incarceration are less likely to find stable housing and employment as adults and six times more likely to experience early death compared with non-incarcerated youth. All of these negative outcomes are also accompanied by extreme cost. The average cost of incarcerating a youth in a secure facility is about $214,620 per year.
The punitive approach does not make sense as social policy, but it serves a purpose for the Trump administration by turning vulnerable populations into scapegoats. U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro recently said: “I see too much violent crime being committed by young punks who think they can get together in gangs and crews and beat the hell out of you.” Trump recently said of Baltimore youth: “They’re not going to be good in 10 years, in five years, in 20 years, in two years they’re going to be criminals. They were born to be criminals.”
Such words remind us that some officials see many Black and immigrant youth as criminals meant to be punished, not as children meant to be protected. The rhetoric and policies of the administration, including cuts to evidence-based programs that actually reduce violence, confirm that this administration does not care about the cost to the young people violently arrested and incarcerated, nor about the cost to society. Instead of approaching all children with care, the administration has waged war on immigrant and Black youth. And it is a war that benefits no one.
Subini Annamma is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. David Stovall is a professor of Black studies and criminology, law and justice. Both research the criminalization of students in schools and society.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement disproportionately targets and traumatizes immigrant and Black children through violent arrests, inadequate detention conditions, and prolonged incarceration, with documented cases including ICE smashing car windows with infants inside, detaining sobbing children in public parks, and officers expressing callous disregard for children’s welfare.
Children are being held in facilities designed for adults, facing delayed medical care, extreme temperatures, and undrinkable water, while the administration seeks to reduce legal protections for detained children including limits on detention duration and sanitary condition requirements[1].
Despite historically low crime rates, youth incarceration rates are increasing with widening racial disparities, driven not by increased youth violence but by more punitive adult reactions and policies that punish minimal infractions[3].
The administration’s rhetoric, including Trump’s claims that certain youth “were born to be criminals” and will never be “good,” reveals an underlying view that many Black and immigrant children are inherently criminal rather than worthy of protection[5].
Policies such as offering children financial incentives to self-deport, attempting mass deportations of children, and conducting “welfare checks” using FBI or Homeland Security agents rather than social workers demonstrate systematic efforts to separate families and remove children from their homes[2][4].
The traumatic impacts of these policies include negative mental health outcomes from witnessing parental arrests, increased depression and suicidal thoughts among arrested youth, reduced educational and employment prospects, and six times higher risk of early death, while costing approximately $214,620 per youth annually in secure facilities.
Rather than implementing evidence-based violence reduction programs, the administration uses punitive approaches that turn vulnerable populations into scapegoats, serving political purposes while inflicting tremendous human and economic costs on society[3].
Different views on the topic
The administration maintains that expanded detention capacity, funded through legislation providing $45 billion for immigration detention through 2029, is necessary to enforce immigration laws and ensure border security[1].
Officials justify enhanced vetting procedures for potential sponsors of unaccompanied children, including intrusive examinations and background checks, as measures to “ensure safe placement” and protect children from trafficking or dangerous situations[1][4].
The designation of cartels and gangs as terrorist organizations enables officials to separate families when parents are suspected of supporting such groups, which the government frames as protecting public safety and national security rather than targeting vulnerable populations[2].
Federal authorities argue that physical examinations of children arriving at the border, including searches for gang-related markings, are necessary screening measures despite concerns about subjecting even young children to such procedures while in government custody[1].
The Office of Refugee Resettlement asserts that its enhanced sponsor vetting policies align with its statutory mandate and that the agency functions as a child welfare entity “not a law enforcement or immigration enforcement entity,” even as extended screening procedures significantly increase the time children spend in federal custody[4].
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