Thousands of children have been swept into immigration detention since President Donald Trump returned to office and revived the practice of holding families in custody, according to a new analysis by The Marshall Project of Immigration and Customs Enforcement data.
The analysis found that at least 3,800 children under the age of 18, including 20 infants, have been booked into ICE custody since Trump took office. More than 1,300 of those children were held for 20 days or longer, exceeding the benchmark set by a federal court interpretation of the Flores settlement, which generally limits how long children may be detained with their families.
Court filings cited by The Marshall Project describe harsh conditions inside detention facilities. One mother said she and her 5-year-old daughter were arrested by heavily armed officers at a Chicago laundromat and later held at an airport without access to food, water or basic hygiene before being transferred to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas. “This place definitely feels like a jail,” she said in a declaration. “It’s a jail for children.”
ICE told the court overseeing the Flores settlement that it seeks to minimize the detention of minors and aims to release children “as quickly as possible.” But the data shows a spike in releases clustered around the 20-day limit, which former officials and advocates say suggests families are being held as long as legally possible to increase the likelihood of deportation directly from detention.
Scott Shuchart, a former head of policy at ICE, told The Marshall Project that the pattern indicates the government is using detention as leverage. “They want to be able to hold families indefinitely, and remove them or pressure them to give up,” he said.
The revival of family detention marks a reversal from the Biden administration, which largely halted the practice in 2021 and closed the Dilley facility. That center has since reopened, along with another family detention site in Texas.
ICE acknowledged in court filings that extended custody of children is a “widespread operational challenge,” citing logistical and legal delays. Lawyers working on the Flores agreement dispute that explanation, noting cases in which children were held for months.
“The goal is to create as much pain as possible to the most vulnerable people,” said Becky Wolozin, an attorney with the National Center for Youth Law, “in the hopes that it makes deportation easier.”
The Marshall Project has been busy since making ICE accountable since Trump returned to office in January. A separate investigation in collaboratio with Univision in September found a sharp rise in the use of solitary confinement in ICE facilities, including cases involving people with medical or mental-health conditions.
Originally published on Latin Times
