A new report from the Brookings Institution estimates that more than 145,000 U.S. citizen children have had at least one parent detained since the start of Donald Trump's second administration. This comes amid a mass deportation campaign heavily influenced by immigration hardliner Stephen Miller.
Brookings Report Details
The nonpartisan think tank conducted a statistical analysis of approximately 60,000 people currently in detention and 400,000 individuals placed into ICE detention from interior arrests since Trump's second term began. The report estimates that over 22,000 children experienced the detention of all co-resident parents, and more than 53,000 citizen children with a detained parent were under the age of six.
Comparison to Previous Administrations
While Trump is not the first president to detain or deport parents of U.S. citizen minors, the pace and cruelty are unprecedented. A ProPublica analysis found ICE arrests of parents doubled in the first seven months of Trump's second term compared to the Biden administration. Mothers are being targeted more aggressively, with Trump deporting about four times as many mothers of U.S. citizen children per day as Biden did.
Changes in Policy Guidelines
The Parental Interests Directive has been renamed the Detained Parents Directive under Trump, and its preamble, which once instructed agents to handle immigrant parents humanely, has been stripped of the word "humane."
Lack of Systematic Protection
The Brookings report states there is no systematic approach to protecting children of those detained by ICE. No government entity is responsible for their wellbeing, and inadequate record-keeping means little is known about what happens to these children.
Expert Concerns on Trauma
Kelly Kribs, an attorney at the Young Center, told the Guardian that the current separation crisis is even more insidious than the 2018 family separation policy. "It's leading to all the same forms of trauma that we saw unfold back in 2018," Kribs said, "but the speed and the scale of the separations now is at a level we've never seen before."
Stephen Miller, architect of these policies, remains unapologetic, boasting of a "very, very secure, intact ego" in a recent Fox News interview. His wife, Katie Miller, has also expressed indifference to family separation, stating in 2018 that having her own children did not change her views.
