In the chaos of the first several months of the current administration, the stories of migrant children are not often noted. While family separations at the border were a major issue during the first Trump administration, the family separations happening now are underreported. Under the current Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has seemingly made it a policy to separate families when parents are taken into custody and/or deported.
Recently, accusations of “kidnapping” children lobbed against the United States by the Venezuelan government brought to light just how common these separations are. Asking about them, how often they occur, and if the children are being properly cared for is met with silence by federal agencies such as DHS, Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a branch of HHS.
Despite effectively ignoring the allegations, DHS has returned several of the children named by the Venezuelan government, thus confirming that they are still separating families, deporting parents to their home countries without their children, and reuniting them about a month or more later. This cruel process serves no purpose other than to be as inhumane as possible to migrant families. The silence, rather than addressing the issue, only highlights the willful nature of it all.
Finding accurate data on how many children are in the U.S.’s care can be tricky, as they are typically transferred from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the custody of ORR within 72 hours. From there, children could be placed anywhere within a cross-country network of shelters and other provider facilities, required to be chosen based on the child’s needs and in the least restrictive setting possible.
If a child has a sponsor such as a family member, ORR conducts background checks, including fingerprinting, criminal background checks, and sex offender registry checks. If there are no family sponsors, ORR places children with “other suitable sponsors.” Caring for migrant children through this process is dictated by the Flores Settlement Agreement, a 1997 legal consent decree mandating standards for the treatment, release, and detention of migrant children.
The Flores Settlement Agreement
The Flores Settlement Agreement dates back to 1997. It mandates that children be held in safe and sanitary conditions and the least restrictive age-appropriate settings that sufficiently meet their needs. The decree requires that children be released without delay to family members or suitable sponsors whenever possible. It also allows rights groups to monitor conditions and ensure access to critical services, such as healthcare and education.
Despite it being dubiously enforced until 2003, when ORR took responsibility for the care of migrant children, the Agreement has been an issue of contention for every administration for nearly two decades and has been challenged by many presidents. Since then, federal agencies have adopted much of the language in the Agreement, but they have yet to implement policies, nor has legislation been passed to meet and standardize the requirements.
In May, the Department of Justice (DOJ), DHS, and HHS filed a motion to terminate the Flores Settlement Agreement. However, a group of lawyers filed a motion in June to block ending the consent decree, citing numerous concerns within various facilities owned by private companies CoreCivic and Geo Group. Allegations are similar to the complaints lodged against many other facilities across the country, including medical neglect and a lack of food and water.
Whether children are being properly cared for is hard to assess after the Trump administration crippled DHS offices that monitor detention center conditions and stopped more than 500 investigations by the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties into reported abuses. However, we can likely judge how bad the conditions for children are based on previous reports about child detention centers and how migrants are currently being treated under the current administration.
“Our findings show that child abuse is systemic in CBP… This complaint should act as a wake-up call for our government to reimagine our border policies and practices so that children don’t suffer abuse for political gain,” said Carson Scott, Staff Attorney at ImmDef in September 2024. “The Biden administration must commit to welcoming children at our border with safety and dignity, not further trauma and abuse.”
From food shortages and a lack of medical care to overcrowded conditions, leaving noncitizens to sleep on dirty concrete floors, to being denied clean drinking water and being physically and verbally abused, ICE agents operate in a broadly xenophobic and hateful manner. After shutting down or hampering accountability offices within DHS, without the Flores Settlement Agreement, children could be subjected to worse treatment than they’re experiencing now, in addition to the long-term trauma of being separated from their families.
Recent Reports
The intentional nature of it all is highlighted again in a recent report from Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-GA) office. The report by his staff takes a deeper dive into the terrible conditions in many detention centers, including those housing pregnant women and children. Denying migrants access to attorneys is a topic covered in the report but rarely discussed more openly.
“Credibly reported or confirmed events to date include deaths in custody, physical and sexual abuse, mistreatment of pregnant women, mistreatment of children, inadequate medical care, overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions, inadequate food or water, exposure to extreme temperatures, denial of access to attorneys, and family separations,” reads the report.
“The Senator’s staff has received or identified 18 credible reports that children as young as two years old, including U.S. citizens, have been mistreated in DHS custody,” the report continued. “Three of these children reportedly experienced severe medical issues while in detention and were denied adequate medical treatment.”
Another report in May from the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP) called attention to the abuses surrounding the deportation of a 10-year-old U.S. citizen recovering from a brain tumor. TCRP looked into everything about their case, from the initial stop at a border patrol checkpoint and denying the girl needed medical attention to their detention and deportations.
“CBP denied urgent medical care to a vulnerable and disabled U.S. citizen child, violated the family’s due process rights, and generally subjected the family to a course of abuse and humiliation before removing them to a country where their U.S. citizen children are in grave danger of kidnapping and cannot access the medical care they require,” reads the TCRP report.
These systemic abuses go back decades, and it’s only when immigrant rights groups challenge them in court, invoking the Flores Settlement Agreement, that we learn of the human rights violations against children. Currently, it’s the most powerful accountability tool we have, which is arguably why the administration wants to end it, just as it tried to, starting in 2017.
This is a story I will continue to follow and seek information about.
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