Many more American children have likely been separated from their parents during immigration drives than previously thought, according to a report from the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Brookings.
The report published Monday estimates more than 100,000 U.S. citizen children A relative has been arrested since President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign began last year. The analysis cites ProPublica reports on parental detention, which can often lead to family separations.
Under the first Trump administration, a policy of separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border ended after widespread outrage. Today, the breakdown of families is occurring amid sweeps by immigration officials across the country.
About 400,000 people have been arrested by immigration agents since Trump returned to office, Brookings noted. But it is almost impossible to know how many family separations this has caused, since the administration does not track them.
Families are also now divided in ways that are more dispersed, more hidden, and more difficult to track.
Brookings created its estimate using census information to approximate the number of children inmates have. It is estimated that approximately 200,000 children, including 145,000 American children, have seen a parent detained. The think tank notes that the actual figure could be slightly higher or lower.
ProPublica used a different, more conservative approach that relied on government data obtained through a public information lawsuit filed by the University of Washington. We found that in just the first seven months of Trump’s second term, at least 11,000 American children had an incarcerated parent. We also found that Trump deported about four times as many mothers of American children every day as President Joe Biden.
As we have noted, our numbers are almost certainly underestimates. For example, government data relies on inmates self-reporting whether they have children. In some cases, officers may not ask and parents can’t share details about their family out of fear of what might happen to their children.
“There are a lot of families who are in this situation who are not registered,” said Tara Watson, one of the authors of the Brookings report. It is “important, both for transparency and from a child health and well-being perspective, to know what is happening to children. How many of them leave the United States? How many of them stay in the United States with their immediate family? How many of them do we really not know what their situation is?”
ProPublica also followed several families through their sudden separations and found a wide variety of outcomes for the children.
Doris Flores, a mother from Honduras, was separated from her breast-feeding baby after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested her and her fiancé at the same time. In a hurry to find someone to care for the baby and Flores’ 8-year-old daughter, she appealed to the local pastor to take in the children.
In response to Brookings’ findings, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, sent an oft-repeated statement that the agency “does not separate families,” adding that parents are asked whether they want to be returned with their children or instead place them with someone designated by the parents. DHS said this is consistent with the practices of previous administrations.
However, the guidelines for ICE agents meeting with parents have changed. A document known as the Parental Interests Directive has been given a new name under Trump: the Detained Parents Directive. Its preamble, which once directed officers to treat immigrant parents in a “humane” manner, has been removed.
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