A federal court blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to eliminate 40-year-old protections for unaccompanied immigrant children, preserving their right to consult a parent or attorney before waiving any legal rights.
The Trump administration is signaling interest in overturning a 1982 Supreme Court ruling that guaranteed all children, regardless of immigration status, the right to a free public education.
Aggressive immigration enforcement and the rollback of protections for schools are disrupting education for immigrant children, resulting in chronic absenteeism, lower test scores, and reduced college enrollment.
When parents are detained or deported, the traumatic separation can cause lasting psychological harm including PTSD — prompting some states to update guardianship laws so immigrant parents can designate temporary caregivers in advance.
ICE detention has reached a historic high of nearly 60,000 people, with the number held for over a year more than doubling since October — including children as young as five.
A Venezuelan father with temporary protected status was detained by ICE officers when he arrived at a New Mexico office expecting to be reunited with his two children who had been held in a federal shelter for nearly a year.
The Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case that could end birthright citizenship, a constitutional right established in 1868 — and if eliminated, an estimated 255,000 children born in the US each year could begin life without citizenship.
ICE arrests of immigrant parents with US-born children doubled in the first seven months of Trump’s second term compared to Biden, and the majority of those arrested have no criminal record beyond traffic or immigration offenses.
This interview with Dr. Kristina Lovato, director of the Center on Immigration and Child Welfare, explores how immigration enforcement and deportation-related family separation shape the well-being of immigrant children and families, and what practitioners, researchers, and legal professionals can do to better support them.
This research brief warns that since family detention centers reopened in March 2025, the number of detained families has more than tripled while a growing number of others have lost a parent to deportation, causing documented harm to children’s development, mental health, and education.
© 2026 CICW.