Across the country, innocent children are being swept up in ICE immigration actions and subjected to trauma now that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

In Minnesota, federal agents detained multiple students connected to local schools, including a 5-year-old child. In other states, elementary school children have been picked up during early-morning home raids, taken into custody alongside parents, or left waiting for hours while family members were processed. Some children have been transferred to distant facilities, separated from caregivers with no explanation and no timeline for reunification.

This is what an immigration dragnet looks like when it does not distinguish between enforcement targets and innocent children.

Families and advocates report that minors in ICE custody have been held in conditions unfit for children: fluorescent lights left on around the clock, thin mats or concrete floors for sleeping, inadequate access to showers or clean clothes, delays in receiving prescription medications, and limited access to pediatric medical care.

Even short periods in such environments can be destabilizing. For young children, the experience of being confined by armed officers, fingerprinted, transported in vans, and placed behind locked doors can produce acute stress responses that remain long after release.

Send a direct message to Congress demanding they stop ICE from detaining and deporting innocent children and immediately prohibit ICE enforcement actions at public schools.

SIGN & SEND

Child development research is clear: exposure to sudden separation, perceived threat, and institutional confinement can trigger toxic stress. That stress alters neurological development, heightens anxiety disorders, impairs concentration, and increases the risk of long-term depression and post-traumatic symptoms.

When a child’s “safe place” -- whether it be home or school -- is linked with the fear of arrest, there is deeper psychological injury. Schools are supposed to be safe and steady environments. But immigration enforcement actions in and around school communities send the powerful message: nowhere is safe.

Attendance drops. Children become withdrawn. Teachers report students who are afraid to speak, afraid to go home, afraid their parents will not be there when they get home. Catching innocent children in an enforcement dragnet imprints fear onto their formative years that follows them into adolescence and adulthood.

Congress has the authority to intervene. Lawmakers can prohibit immigration enforcement actions in and around public schools, bar the routine detention of minors, restrict funding for family detention, and require community-based alternatives. They can mandate appropriate standards of care and immediate judicial review when minors are detained.

If Congress fails to act, more children will experience the shock of being taken into custody, and more families will carry life-long trauma.

Tell Congress to stop ICE from detaining and deporting children, and prohibit ICE from entering public schools.

Thank you for protecting young children from trauma.

- DFA AF Team

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