Misleadingly characterized as measures to protect U.S. families and communities, the Administration’s harsh immigration enforcement tactics and policies run afoul of deeply held values and safeguards that prioritize child welfare and family unity to instead render children and their caregivers enforcement targets. From detention facilities and immigration offices to homes, neighborhoods, courts, and workplaces, the Administration’s enforcement initiatives embrace a troubling tool. They leverage families’ treasured bonds and relationships—among the most protective factors and fundamental rights for children—against them.
This policy brief provides an overview of the expanding ways that the Administration’s policies and actions are tearing families apart and illustrates how the Administration is using government agencies, resources, and staffing to exploit, rather than mitigate, children’s vulnerabilities. It documents how efforts prioritizing the removal of thousands of children from the United States are disregarding children’s rights and safety, deepening trauma, and mounting new barriers to children’s reunification with family and access to humanitarian protection. The brief calls for an urgent return to upholding core values and safeguards that protect family unity, center children’s well-being and best interests, and ensure that children are never returned to trafficking and other harm.
