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.
Immigrant mothers are increasingly having survival conversations with their children about ICE enforcement, drawing parallels to the “Talk” Black families have long given their children about police.
Families released from the Dilley detention facility face an abrupt and disorienting transition and grapple with the lasting medical, psychological, and financial consequences of detention.
After eight months in immigration detention, a 25-year-old former foster youth and advocate chose to voluntarily leave the US for Mexico, separating him from his 4-year-old son and the only country he has known since age 3.
Despite legal limits on detention length, over 900 immigrant children were held in family detention for longer than 20 days as of January, with roughly 270 confined for more than twice that limit, in conditions advocates describe as traumatic and developmentally harmful.
Amid record deaths in ICE custody and intensifying enforcement, many immigrants are drafting wills and preparing for the worst as fear of raids, violent encounters, and detention spreads through immigrant communities across the country.
The Trump administration is deporting parents without asking about or making arrangements for their children, in violation of its own policies, leaving US citizen children without stable caregivers.
The detainee population at the Dilley family detention facility dropped dramatically from over 900 to around 100 following public pressure sparked by letters written by detained children.
The Trump administration is seeking to deport five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, the Ecuadorian boy detained in Minneapolis, just days after he returned home to Minnesota following weeks at a Texas family detention facility.
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