The government has continued to separate migrant children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border even though President Trump signed an executive order over the summer ending the practice, government data shows.
Read MoreThis report lifts up how everyday activities, like driving, can result in severe consequences for children and families in the Valley. A minor traffic stop can snowball into the detention or deportation of a Rio Grande Valley community member. We chronicle how current practices around traffic stops, identification (ID) cards, and immigration enforcement are affecting the health and safety of the entire Rio Grande Valley.
This practice advisory is one of a series of ILRC Practice Advisories on the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA).1 CSPA, enacted on August 6, 2002, is a complex law that applies in different ways to different types of immigrant offspring. The overall intent of this law is to compensate for delays in processing that in the past caused the children of immigrants to age out and become ineligible for certain immigration benefits through their parents.
The federal agency tasked with caring for asylum-seeking children separated from their parents at the US-Mexican border has officially taken on a new, little-publicized role in recent months: helping to deport relatives of the young migrants.
Read MoreThis brief discusses how research on child development, neuroscience, and trauma can inform federal policy regarding the treatment of children and their families arriving at our nation’s border.
Wilder Hilario Maldonado Cabrera was the youngest defendant on the juvenile docket that day, and he was one of the last children left in government custody who had been affected by the zero-tolerance policy.
Read MoreThe Trump administration has put the safety of thousands of teens at a migrant detention camp at risk by waiving FBI fingerprint checks for their caregivers and short-staffing mental health workers, according to an Associated Press investigation and a new federal watchdog report.
Read MoreImmigration lawyers say border agents are again removing children from their parents. The explanation? They’re protecting kids from criminal dads and moms. Immigration advocates say it’s zero tolerance by another name.
Read MoreVilma Carillo is one of an unknown number of parents separated from a US citizen child at the southwest border. Her daughter, Yeisvi, is currently in the custody of the Arizona Department of Child Safety and the state has begun child welfare proceedings.
Read MoreThe federal government has spent $80 million to care for and reunite migrant children who were separated from their parents by immigration authorities, a figure that continues to grow months after the policy ended because more than 140 children are still in custody.
Read MoreMigrant families could be held indefinitely in unlicensed detention centers under a new federal plan that also would end critical court protections for immigrant children, according to new court records.
Read MoreThe number of immigrant children in federal custody has reached an all-time high, with more than 14,000 children currently being held in government facilities, the San Francisco Chronicle first reported Friday.
Read MoreThe U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia denied the U.S. government’s motion to dismiss Legal Aid Justice Center’s lawsuit on behalf of detained immigrant children and their families, striking a blow to a new immigration policy that has kept thousands of children unnecessarily detained for months.
The migrant caravan underscores the dire need to address the root causes of migration from Central America to the United States, including the pervasive violence that forces children without parents and families with young children to embark on a life-threatening journey of thousands of miles to seek safety in the United States.
Immigrant families are dropping out of the food stamps program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), likely because they are afraid using public benefits could lead to problems with their legal status. Less access to healthy, affordable food is associated with a higher risk of poor health outcomes like nutrient deficiency and poor cognitive development for kids, as well as more hospitalizations.
Read MoreThis report from Urban Institute and the National Center for Children in Poverty found that expanding state immigration enforcement policies increased material hardship (such as eviction or difficulty paying for basic household expenses) in immigrant households with children. Although the policies target unauthorized immigrant populations, lawful immigrant households also experienced more material hardship in states with expanded enforcement, suggesting a broader climate of fear created by such policies.
The San Diego federal judge overseeing family separation cases against the government has given final approval for a settlement agreement that aims to give certain migrant parents a second shot at asylum.
Read MoreThis analysis provides new estimates of the potential impacts from the proposed Trump administration changes to the public charge rule. Using 2014 Survey of Income and Program Participation data, it examines the (1) share of noncitizens who originally entered the U.S. without LPR status who have characteristics that DHS could potentially weigh negatively in a public charge determination and (2) number of individuals who would disenroll from Medicaid under different scenarios.
This webinar will present an overview of the Social Policy Report, “Applying a Community Violence Framework to Understand the Impact of Immigration Enforcement Threat on Latino Children” to better understand how uncertainty and threat regarding familial safety adversely impacts the lives of Latino children in immigrant households.
Register Here
© 2026 CICW.