Child Detention Should Not Exist

Immigrant Children Deserve to be Free.

The United States government attempts to reframe children’s immigration detention as an innocuous shelter or foster home operated by a child welfare agency. The ugly reality remains: detention is harmful to children, and children do not belong there. Children belong with their families. Children deserve to be free.

In Fiscal Year 2024, the United States detained 98,356 unaccompanied immigrant children within a complex and extensive child detention system. That system is overseen by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (“ORR”) under the umbrella of Health and Human Services. ORR -- which consists of a wide range of facilities, including shelters, foster homes, group homes, therapeutic group homes, heightened supervision facilities, secure jail-like facilities (called “secure” and “staff-secure”), large and unregulated influx facilities, secretive residential treatment centers, and more -- masquerades as a child welfare agency. Supposedly, the agency “incorporates child welfare principles when making placement, clinical, case management, and release decisions.”

In reality, the detention system for unaccompanied immigrant children is rife with all forms of abuse and neglect. In addition, its proximity to and collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR,” colloquially known as the immigration court), both part of the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), inherently violate its supposed child welfare mandate. Nonetheless, the general public knows little about the system, how it works, and its myriad deficiencies.

I encountered the injustices of this system firsthand: from about 2017 to 2020, I represented detained children in their immigration cases as a Staff Attorney at HIAS Pennsylvania, a nonprofit organization that receives federal funding to provide legal services to unaccompanied immigrant children in PA. Representing immigrant children in detention was a traumatic experience for me as an outside party, and those scars still impact my lawyering today. You can easily imagine the impact of this system upon my young, vulnerable clients trapped inside.

Artwork from a detained child.

LONG-TERM DETENTION OF CHILDREN CAUSES LIFELONG HARM

Detention is harmful to children, and the length of time in detention directly correlates with the severity of mental harm. Long-term detention is linked to lifelong struggles with PTSD, Depression, Anxiety, suicidal ideation, and other mental health challenges. ORR is plagued by lengthy stays for children in its detention facilities. For children discharged from ORR custody in May 2025, the average length of stay in ORR custody was 191 days. Through its policies aimed at deporting children’s ORR sponsors, the Trump administration has lengthened detention times for unaccompanied children in both of his terms.

Unaccompanied children in ORR custody are assigned a caseworker, whose role is to identify and locate a sponsor in the community who can care for them while their deportation proceedings in immigration court are ongoing. All unaccompanied kids are automatically placed in deportation proceedings.

However, a number of policies have made it much more difficult for children to leave ORR custody in a timely manner. For example, Trump has required DNA testing and fingerprints for sponsors and other adults in the household, and then handed that information over to ICE for enforcement purposes. This created a chilling effect, with sponsors not wanting to come forward and identify themselves to ORR, leaving children trapped in detention.

Most recently, the Trump administration has implemented new requirements for sponsors, such as requiring sponsors to have legal immigration status in the United States, in order to receive a child. This has drastically spiked the average length of stay in detention. A judge recently blocked those requirements, but litigation is ongoing.

Additionally, the Trump administration created over 5,000 unaccompanied children with lasting trauma through its “Zero Tolerance” family separation policy during the first term. That policy forcibly separated children from their parents as a deterrence measure, converting over 5,000 very much accompanied children into unaccompanied children, with no reliable way to reunite them with their parents. More than six years later, as many as 1,360 of those children remain separated from their families and may never be reunited. Physicians for Human Rights found that the trauma of that separation amounted to torture in many cases.

Artwork from a detained child.

CHILDREN FACE INHUMANE CONDITIONS IN DETENTION

Immigrant children are detained in inhumane conditions from the moment they arrive in the US. The majority of immigrant children are apprehended by immigration agents at the US-Mexico border. As unaccompanied children, they should be transferred to ORR custody within 72 hours. They spend up to those first 72 hours in adult detention at the border. We’ve all seen the photos: kids in cages. Chain-link fences. Aluminum blankets. In many cases, the 72 hour rule is not followed, and children are detained in deplorable conditions for even longer. I represented one child who was detained at the border for eleven days before being transferred to ORR. There is generally no accountability when this happens.

Even after transfer to ORR, many children face sexual, physical, and verbal abuse, on top of the trauma they arrive with. While representing kids in ORR custody, I encountered children who were groomed and sexually abused by trusted staff members; children who were forcibly medicated, excessively restrained, physically abused, and even sent to “off the books” residential treatment centers; children who were given inadequate food; and more. When the number of children exceeds ORR capacity, some children are kept in large, unregulated, unsafe influx centers where they face the trauma of detention and institutionalization and lack critical services like education.

Children’s behavior in ORR custody is pathologized and weaponized against them. Each incident of behavior that a staff member dislikes is written up in their official file as a “Serious Incident Report” or “SIR.” Normal, age-appropriate or trauma-related behaviors become SIRs. For example, I recall being told by a case manager that a child displayed sexually concerning behaviors. The behavior in question? Mimicking oral sex with a phallic-looking food. I suppose most teen boys are sexual predators under this system.

SIRs can then be used against the child if they are aging out of ORR custody. For example, high quantities of SIRs can lead ICE to detain a child who ages out, instead of releasing them to a sponsor or shelter program. ICE also has access to the entire ORR file, so the SIRs can also be used against them in immigration court. Similarly, migrant kids’ therapy notes -- from their ORR-mandated therapy sessions -- are readily available to ICE, who use them against kids in court.

SIRs can also land children in higher security, jail-like facilities within ORR. Under the law, ORR is mandated to keep kids in the “least restrictive setting” possible. However, children can be transferred to higher levels of security without reason and with no meaningful opportunity for due process. Even for kids in the lowest level of security (“shelter care”), the damage of long-term detention is undeniable. However, for kids in the high-security, jail-like settings, the damage is severe, because they are much more likely to face long-term detention and various forms of abuse.

“WELFARE” CHECKS AND THE LIE OF 300,000 MISSING KIDS

While making it more difficult for children to reunite with their families and escape detention, the Trump administration has simultaneously begun terrorizing children and families who thought they had already been permanently reunited. Earlier this year, the Trump administration began conducting so-called “welfare” checks on unaccompanied children who had been released to sponsors since 2019. The administration claims the welfare checks are meant to keep kids safe, but their tactics say otherwise.

Anecdotally, many local unaccompanied children report armed federal agents appearing unexpectedly at their home -- an exceptionally terrifying occurrence in a time when children are already fearful of ICE enforcement, and many have memorized Know Your Rights skills like refusing to open the door without a judicial warrant. In the name of keeping kids safe, these armed federal agents have shown up unannounced at children’s homes and even schools, creating chaos and terror. Even our local listserv of immigration attorneys flailed and panicked when these visits began, unsure of the safest way for our clients to respond.

Through these so-called “welfare” checks, the government has ripped hundreds of children from their homes and communities, retraumatizing them and placing them back in the harmful setting of detention.

These “welfare” checks have been justified by the lie of the 300,000 “missing” immigrant children. Political punditry and sloppy journalism share the blame. The 300,000 number comes from a report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General, which noted that, “more than 291,000 unaccompanied migrant children had not, as of May 2024, received a notice to appear in court. Additionally, more than 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children got a notice to appear but then failed to show up for immigration court hearings.” Essentially, ICE failed to initiate deportation proceedings against 291,000 children. Others missed court -- which is bound to happen in a system that forces children to represent themselves.

Nonetheless, the 300,000 “missing” kids number has been twisted and manipulated to justify harmful “welfare” checks that are part of a larger scheme to deport unaccompanied children and use them to entrap and deport their adult caregivers.

Leaked internal ICE documents instruct agents to locate unaccompanied kids and evaluate whether they can be deported from the US. Agents are also instructed to find unaccompanied kids who pose public safety threats or have gang or terrorist ties (spoiler: the vast, vast majority don’t! My clients are fleeing gang violence, not chasing after it!). Officers were also instructed to deport kids who miss a hearing and to target sponsors.

Finally, ORR freely shares sponsor information with ICE, disincentivizing sponsors from coming forward and leading to the detention and deportation of sponsors and would-be sponsors. Despite the government’s assurances that these check-ins are intended to safeguard children, the reality is that ICE is using them to deport children and their caregivers more quickly.

CHILDREN WHO “AGE OUT” OF ORR CUSTODY ARE SENT TO ADULT ICE DETENTION -- AKA: PRISON

Teens are regularly sent to adult ICE detention centers the moment they turn 18 -- actively working against ORR’s child welfare mandate. In addition to the obvious trauma of being shackled and taken to prison on their 18th birthday, children face slimmer odds of obtaining legal status if their case is heard in detention, rather than a non-detained court. Even if the child manages to secure and pay a bond or win relief, the damage of the adult detention experience lasts forever.

York County Prison used to house “age-outs” in PA.

KIDS FACE JUDGES ALONE, AGAINST A TRAINED ICE ATTORNEY

There is no right to a court-appointed lawyer in immigration court. Even children face judges alone, no matter how young and vulnerable they are. Representation matters: some estimates show that up to 75% of represented kids win the right to stay in the US legally, while 90% of unrepresented children are deported to dangerous situations. Children are seven times more likely to win legal status in the US with a lawyer.

The situation worsens each day: the Trump administration recently slashed federal funding for unaccompanied immigrant children, stripping 26,000+ children of their lawyers and forcing toddlers to face immigration court alone. A leaked internal memo shows that the administration has aggressive plans to pursue and deport unaccompanied immigrant children. Trump seeks to decimate the Flores Settlement Agreement, which provides protections to migrant children in federal custody. If conditions are this bad with Flores, what will they look like without it?

Children in immigration court face judges alone, unless they can pay for a lawyer for a find a nonprofit or pro bono lawyer.

DETAINING CHILDREN REMAINS PROFITABLE

Nonprofits across the country earn billions of dollars each year to detain migrant children -- including facilities with well-known histories of abuse. Nonprofits frame this as humanitarian work, but in reality, the US immigration system is detaining these children, no matter the window dressing. Profit is a strong motivation for kids to remain detained and for agencies to cover up abuse in an effort to retain their funding.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM

Finally, there are obvious and impactful conflicts of interest inherent in the ORR system: funding for legal services comes from the same government that wants to detain and deport kids -- which also funds their detention -- which also funds ICE -- which also funds the immigration judges -- and so on. Is the federal government that is trying to deport unaccompanied children to be trusted with their care and custody? In my opinion, the answer is a clear no.

THE PATH FORWARD

Child welfare experts have long known what’s best for children, and it’s beyond time for ORR to live up to its child welfare mandate. Children should be reunited with family as quickly as possible and spend as little time in detention as possible. While the reunification process is underway, children should have access to the most home-like setting possible (versus the large, institutionalized influx shelters ORR has often used). Children should invariably have access to ample nutritious food, water, education, recreation, relationships with safe adults, and a confidential, trauma-informed place to heal their mental health. Children should never face deportation. While advocates work toward that vision, children deserve universal representation.

It is possible to create a world where all immigrant children are safe, welcomed, and loved. Visit projectlibertad.org/volunteer to learn how you can help us get there.