Tag Archives: Tricia McLaughlin

LA Times: ICE seizes 6-year-old with cancer outside L.A. court. His mom is fighting for his release

Posted on by
Reply

A Central American asylum applicant arrested outside an L.A. immigration court is suing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security and the Trump administration for her immediate release and that of her two children, including her 6-year-old son stricken with cancer.

The Honduran woman, not named in court documents, filed a petition for writs of habeas corpus, challenging the legality of her and her family’s detention at a Texas facility. She is also asking for a preliminary injunction that would prevent her family’s immediate deportation to Honduras, as her children cry and pray nightly to be released from a Texas holding facility, according to court documents.

She and her two children, including a 9-year-old daughter, are facing two removal proceedings concurrently: a previous removal proceeding involving their asylum request and this recent expedited removal process.

The woman claims the government violated many of their rights, including the due process clause of the 5th Amendment.

Her attorneys noted that DHS determined she was not a flight risk when she was paroled and that her detention was unjustified.

The woman’s lawyers also argued that she was not given an opportunity to contest her family’s detention in front of a neutral adjudicator, and that the family’s 4th Amendment right to not be unlawfully arrested was violated.

The Honduran mother is being represented by several groups, including attorney Kate Gibson Kumar of the Texas Civil Rights Project”So often, you’ll hear all the rhetoric in this country that immigrants should be doing it ‘the right way,’ and it’s ironic in this case because we’re in a situation where this family did it ‘the right way’ and they’re being punished for it,” Kumar told The Times on Friday morning. “They followed the process, went where they were supposed to go and did everything that was asked of them.”

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Antonio on Tuesday. Kumar said a Texas judge issued an order late Thursday evening that compelled the government to respond to the habeas corpus petition by July 1.

Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, countered in an email to The Times on Friday morning that the legal process was playing out fairly.

“This family had chosen to appeal their case — which had already been thrown out by an immigration judge — and will remain in ICE custody until it is resolved.”

One of the focal points of the lawsuit is the fate of the woman’s son.

The youth was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at the age of 3 and has undergone chemotherapy treatments, including injecting chemotherapeutic agents into his cerebrospinal fluid, according to court documents.

He began treatment in Honduras and completed two years of chemotherapy, at which point the mother believes he no longer has leukemia cells in his blood, according to court documents.

The son, however, needs regular monitoring and medical care for his condition, according to court documents.

Last year, the family fled to the United States to “seek safety” after they were subject to “imminent, menacing death threats” in Honduras, according to court documents.

They applied for entrance while waiting in Mexico and received a CBP One app appointment in October to apply for asylum. They presented themselves at an undisclosed border entry, were processed and were paroled in the U.S., according to court documents.

They were scheduled to appear before a Los Angeles immigration court and moved to the area to live with family.

Both children enrolled in local public schools, attended Sunday church and were learning English, according to court documents.

“They’re asylum seekers fleeing from violence, who had an appointment at the border, were paroled into the country and the government made an assessment that they didn’t have to be detained,” Kumar said. “There should be some sort of protection for this family, which is doing everything right.”

The trio arrived at court May 29 for a hearing for their asylum request and were caught off guard when a Homeland Security lawyer asked for their case to be dismissed, according to court documents.

The woman told an immigration judge “we wish to continue [with our cases],” according to court documents.

The judge granted the dismissal and the Honduran mother and two children were immediately arrested by plainclothes ICE agents upon leaving the courtroom in the hallway, according to court documents. The woman had a June 5 medical appointment scheduled for her son’s cancer diagnosis, which he couldn’t attend because of the arrest.

The family was detained for hours on the first floor before being taken to an undisclosed immigration center in the city, according to court documents.

All three “cried in fear” and the young boy urinated on himself and remained in wet clothing “for hours,” according to court documents.

The trio were placed on a flight to San Antonio along with several other families. The date of the flight was not available.

After landing, the family was transported to a detention center in Dilley, Texas, where they remain.

“Fortunately, the minor child in question has not undergone chemotherapy in over a year, and has been seen regularly by medical personnel since arriving at the Dilley facility,” McLaughlin said.

McLaughlin added that no family member had been denied emergency care.

“The implication that ICE would deny a child the medical care they need is flatly FALSE, and it is an insult to the men and women of federal law enforcement,” she said. “ICE ALWAYS prioritizes the health, safety, and well-being of all detainees in its care.”

The children have cried each night and prayed “for God to take them out of the detention center,” according to court documents.

The mother claims that the federal government did nothing to monitor her son’s leukemia for days.

Her lawyers have also sought the boy’s release for medical treatment, a request that was not fulfilled.

ICE seizes 6-year-old with cancer outside L.A. court. His mom is fighting for his release
A Honduran woman is fighting to prevent her family’s immediate deportation to Honduras as her 6-year-old son battles acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-06-26/mother-of-6-year-old-l-a-boy-battling-leukemia-files-lawsuit-to-stop-immediate-deportation

Salon: “Cried every night”: ICE traumatizes a child with leukemia

Posted on by
Reply

The Trump administration is going after easy targets, including sick children, to meet its deportation quotas

As part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, a young cancer patient and his family were detained, despite adhering to every rule of the immigration process. The boy’s lawyer says the family’s experience puts to lie the Trump administration’s claims about deportation.

In May, a 6-year-old boy from Honduras who had been suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia since the age of three was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, alongside his family, immediately after a court hearing on May 29. Their case was dismissed at the hearing, per instructions from Trump, who directed judges to dismiss the cases of immigrants who have been in the country for less than two years so that ICE can move to deport them. On July 2, the family was released after significant pressure from the public and media coverage of the detention.

Elora Mukherjee, an attorney who represented the boy and his family, told Salon that the boy and his 9-year-old sister “cried every night in detention.” At the same time, the government pursued an expedited removal, a process by which the government deports someone without a hearing before a judge.

“The Trump administration’s policy of detaining people at courthouses who are doing everything right, who are entirely law-abiding, who are trying to fulfill all the requirements that the US government asks of them — it violates our Constitution, it violates our federal laws. It also violates our sense of morality. Why are we targeting hundreds, if not thousands, of people, including children, who are doing everything right?” Mukherjee said.

Jeff Migliozzi, the communications director for Freedom for Immigrants, an immigrant advocacy organziation, told Salon that “The Trump administration’s aggressive quota of 3,000 daily immigration arrests — a policy pushed by hardliners in the White House like known white nationalist Stephen Miller — is terrorizing communities.”

“The administration is directing resources and personnel from every possible corner of the government to conduct a multi-agency detention and deportation campaign at unprecedented scale,” Migliozzi said.. “This destructive agenda touches every corner of American life and civil society, as more and more people, including those who have been in the US for decades and are pillars of their community, are suddenly snatched by masked agents and taken away to remote detention sites. Street operations are resource-intensive, so the administration has increasingly turned to bait-and-switch tactics to drive up the numbers. ICE is now relying more on arrests at scheduled check-ins and at courthouses. These practices underscore not only the cruelty of this administration’s policy, but of the outdated and unfair immigration system. Here you have people doing everything they can to follow the instructions given to them, and then the rug is pulled out from under them. The result is separated families and shattered lives.”

Despite living in Los Angeles, the family was kept at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas for over a month. The center had been closed under the Biden Administration, but has been reopened as part of Trump’s push to deport as many immigrants as possible.

In detention, Mukherjee said that the boy suffered from easy bruising and bone pain, both symptoms of leukemia, and missed a June 5 medical appointment related to his cancer treatment. His sister barely ate in detention, she added.

In response to a request for comment from Salon, Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, “ICE does not consider a six-year-old child a ‘flight risk’ or a ‘criminal’—that is a disgusting accusation and devoid of any reality. ”

McLaughlin claimed that the family entered the United States illegally and that “Any implications that ICE would deny a child proper medical care are FALSE,” adding that “ICE ALWAYS prioritizes the health, safety, and well-being of all detainees in its care.”

“On May 29, 2025, an immigration judge in California dismissed the family’s immigration case and they were served orders of expedited removal,” McLaughlin said. “ICE took custody of the family following the judge’s decision and pending further proceedings. The child arrived at the Dilley facility on May 30, 2025, and was seen by a nurse during intake. Fortunately, the child has not undergone chemotherapy in over a year and was seen regularly by medical personnel while at the Dilley facility. During this time, the family chose to appeal their case. On July 2, the child, his mother, and his sister were released on parole.”

The Dilley detention facility has been subject to renewed scrutiny as the Trump administration has sought to terminate the Flores Settlement, a 1990s-era policy stemming from the Supreme Court case Reno v. Flores, which set basic standards for the treatment of children in detention and required the government to release children from detention without unnecessary delay.

Recent testimony about conditions at ICE facilities has raised concerns over violations of the agreement, with one girl describing situations in which adults and children were fighting over an insufficient amount of water at one facility.

“We don’t get enough water. They put out a little case of water, and everyone has to run for it,” the girl said in testimony related to conditions in immigrant detention. “An adult here even pushed my little sister out of the way to get to the water first.”

Mukherjee said that the family had followed all the rules in coming to the United States, but were still arrested by ICE. And, despite claims from the Trump administration that they’re focusing their efforts on criminals, neither the small children nor the mother had been accused of a crime. The family arrived in the United States in October, applying for asylum after they faced death threats in Honduras. The names and details of the family have not been released due to the threats they face in Honduras.

“So this particular family did everything right. They came to the U.S. border after fleeing imminent and menacing death threats in their home country of Honduras. They didn’t cross the border illegally. They waited for permission to enter the United States using a CBP one appointment. At that point, DHS paroled the family into the United States, which necessarily entailed a determination that the family did not pose a danger to the community or a flight risk,” Mukherjee said. “The family did exactly what the federal government asked them to do.”

According to Mukherjee, as soon as the family stepped out of their May 29 hearing, plain clothes ICE officers detained them, a move that she said “clearly violates both the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment.”

“When Trump was campaigning for president, and since he’s become president, and high-level officials in the Department of Homeland Security constantly say that we are targeting the ‘worst of the worst,’” Mukherjee said. “These are the people who are doing everything right.”

Their release followed a suit filed by the mother of the family, demanding the family’s immediate release. Mukherjee told Salon that the family intends to continue its legal battle to remain in the United States.

“Cried every night”: ICE detains child with leukemia – Salon.com
The Trump administration is going after easy targets, including sick children, to meet its deportation quotas

https://www.salon.com/2025/07/14/cried-every-night-ice-traumatizes-a-child-with-leukemia

Miami Herald: Exclusive: Hundreds at Alligator Alcatraz have no criminal charges, Miami Herald learns

Posted on by
Reply

Hundreds of immigrants with no criminal charges in the United States are being held at Alligator Alcatraz, a detention facility state and federal officials have characterized as a place where “vicious” and “deranged psychopaths” are sent before they get deported, records obtained by the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times show.

Mixed among the detainees accused and convicted of crimes are more than 250 people who are listed as having only immigration violations but no criminal convictions or pending charges in the United States. The data is based on a list of more than 700 people who are either being held under tents and in chain link cells at Florida’s pop-up detention center in the Everglades or appear slated for transfer there.

A third of the detainees have criminal convictions. Their charges range from attempted murder to illegal re-entry to traffic violations. Hundreds of others only have pending charges. The records do not disclose the nature of the alleged offenses, and reporters have not independently examined each individual’s case.

The information — subject to change as the population of the facility fluctuates — suggests that scores of migrants without criminal records have been targeted in the state and federal dragnet to catch and deport immigrants living illegally in Florida.

Nationally, nearly half of detainees in ICE custody as of late June were being held for immigration violations and did not have a criminal conviction or charge, according to data from Syracuse University. Polls have shown that American voters support the deportation of criminals but are less supportive of the arrest and detention of otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants. South Florida’s congressional representatives have called on the Trump administration to be more compassionate in its efforts to round up and deport immigrants with status issues.

“That place is supposedly for the worst criminals in the U.S.,” said Walter Jara, the nephew of a 56-year-old Nicaraguan man taken to the facility following a traffic stop in Palm Beach County. The list obtained by the Herald/Times states that his uncle, Denis Alcides Solis Morales, has immigration violations and makes no mention of convictions or pending criminal charges. Jara said his uncle arrived here legally in 2023 under a humanitarian parole program, and has a pending asylum case.

Reporters sent the list to officials at the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In a statement, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the absence of a criminal charge in the United States doesn’t mean migrants detained at the site have clean hands.

“Many of the individuals that are counted as ‘non-criminals’ are actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters and more; they just don’t have a rap sheet in the U.S.,” McLaughlin told the Herald/Times. “Further, every single one of these individuals committed a crime when they came into this country illegally. It is not an accurate description to say they are ‘non-criminals.’”

McLaughlin said the Trump administration is “putting the American people first by removing illegal aliens who pose a threat to our communities” and said “70% of ICE arrests have been of criminal illegal aliens with convictions or pending charges.”

She added that the state of Florida oversees the facility, not ICE, an argument echoed in court by Thomas P. Giles, a top official involved in enforcement and removal operations.

“The ultimate decision of who to detain” at Alligator Alcatraz “belongs to Florida,” he wrote as part of the federal government’s response to a lawsuit challenging the detention facility on environmental grounds.

A spokesperson for ICE referred reporters to Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, which oversees the detention facility. The Florida agency did not respond to a request for comment.

The records offer a glimpse into who is being sent to Alligator Alcatraz. The network of trailers and tents, built on an airstrip off of U.S. Highway 41, has been operating for a little more than a week. It is already housing about 750 immigrant detainees, a figure that state officials shared with Democratic state Sen. Carlos Guillermo-Smith, one of several Florida lawmakers who toured the site on Saturday afternoon.

The records obtained by the Herald/Times show detainees are from roughly 40 countries around the world. Immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala and Cuba made up about half the list. Ages range from 18 to 73. One is listed as being from the United States. Reporters were unable to locate his family or attorney.

Lawmakers who visited the facility Saturday said they saw detainees wearing wristbands, which state officials explained were meant to classify the severity of their civil or criminal violations. The colors included yellow, orange and red — with yellow being less severe infractions and red meaning more severe offenses, said state Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando.

When the detention facility opened on July 1, President Donald Trump visited the site and said it would soon house “some of the most vicious people on the planet.” He and Gov. Ron DeSantis have said the detention center is creating more space to house undocumented immigrants who otherwise would have to be released due to a lack of beds.

The state has refused to make public a roster of detainees at Alligator Alcatraz, instead offering selective information about who is being detained there. On Friday, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office released the names of six men convicted of crimes to Fox News, and later to the Herald/Times upon request. The charges against the men — all included on the list obtained by the Herald/Times — ranged from murder to burglary.

“This group of murderers, rapists, and gang members are just a small sample of the deranged psychopaths that Florida is helping President Trump and his administration remove from our country,” Uthmeier’s spokesman, Jeremy Redfern, said in a statement.

One of those men is Jose Fortin, a 46-year-old from Honduras who was arrested in 2017 on attempted murder charges. Records show Fortin was deported to his home country in August 2019. A month later, he re-entered the country illegally. Border patrol agents picked him up in Texas.

Another man identified as a detainee by Uthmeier’s office, Luis Donaldo Corado, was convicted of burglary and petty theft after he was accused of being a “peeping tom” — watching a woman through her apartment window in Coral Gables. And Eddy Lopez Jemot, a 57-year-old Cuban man, was accused of killing a woman and setting her house on fire in Key Largo in 2017. The state dropped homicide charges against him in a plea deal this year and convicted him of arson.

But other detainees left off the attorney general’s list face lesser charges — such as traffic violations, according to attorneys and family members. An attorney told the Herald/Times her client was detained by federal immigration agents after a routine-check in at an ICE field office. Some are asylum seekers.

Solís Morales, the 56-year-old Nicaraguan, ended up in Alligator Alcatraz after he was unexpectedly detained on his way to a construction job in Palm Beach County on July 1, according to Jara, his nephew. He was a passenger in a Ford F-150 when the driver was pulled over by the Florida Highway Patrol for an unsecured load, Jara told the Herald/Times on Saturday.

Solís Morales arrived in the United States from Nicaragua in 2023 under humanitarian parole and has a pending asylum case, Jara said.

Miami immigration attorney Regina de Moraes said she’s representing a 37-year-old Brazilian man being held at Alligator Alcatraz who entered the United States lawfully on a tourist visa in 2022 and then applied for asylum, which is pending.

She said the man, who has a five-year work permit and owns a solar panel business in the Orlando area, was arrested on a DUI charge in 2024. While he was attending a probation hearing on June 3, he was detained by the Orange County Sheriff’s office, which is participating in a federal immigration program known as 287(g). He was transferred from there to Alligator Alcatraz on Thursday, according to information provided to her by the man’s sister.

De Moraes, a seasoned immigration lawyer, said she doesn’t understand why the Brazilian man was transferred to the state-operated detention facility in the Everglades. She asked the Herald/Times not to identify her client.

“He’s not subject to mandatory detention and he’s not subject to removal because he has a pending asylum application,” de Moraes told the Herald/Times. “He has one DUI and he’s not a threat to others. This is ridiculous. This is a waste of time and money. … He’s not the kind of person they should be picking up.”

“They should be picking up people with sexual battery or armed robbery records,” de Moraes said.

Exclusive: Hundreds at Alligator Alcatraz have no criminal charges, Miami Herald learns
Descriptions of the Everglades detention center as a place for violent criminals tell only part of the story.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article310541810.html

NBC News: Immigrants in overcapacity ICE detention say they’re hungry, raise food quality concerns

Posted on by
Reply

As the Trump administration ramps up immigration arrests, recent detainees and advocacy groups are raising concerns about food in ICE facilities nationwide.

Immigrants being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in at least seven states are complaining of hunger, food shortages and spoiled food, detainees and immigration advocates say. They say some detainees have gotten sick; others say they have lost weight. In one facility, an incident involving detainees reportedly broke out in part because of food.

The food problems come amid overcrowding at ICE facilities tied to the Trump administration’s push to quickly ramp up immigration arrests. While capacity data isn’t publicly available for every ICE detention facility, nationwide figures on the availability of beds show a system beyond its overall capacity. As of mid-June, ICE was detaining nearly 60,000 people, almost 45% above the capacity provided for by Congress.

Although many of ICE’s detention centers are run by private contractors, the problems are happening all over the country regardless of who’s running a given facility, advocates say. A former ICE official told NBC News it is difficult for a facility to stay stocked with the right amount of food when, on any given day, it may face an unexpected surge of new detainees. While the agency can move money around to cover the cost of detaining more immigrants, planning for unexpected daily spikes can be difficult for facilities and could lead to food being served late or in small quantities, the former ICE official said.

On top of that, there are now fewer avenues for detainees to submit concerns while they are in ICE custody, advocates say, pointing to recent job cuts to an independent watchdog within the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency.

“We haven’t seen any company-specific trends,” said Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, practice and policy counsel with the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “It just goes to the overall detention system and how overcrowded the detention system is as a whole.”

Alfredo Parada Calderon, a Salvadoran man who has been detained for almost a year, says he has recently had meals that have left him feeling hungry.

Detainees have sometimes been given flavorless meat that is so finely ground that it is almost liquefied, he told NBC News from the Golden State Annex detention facility in California.

“It looks like little, small pebbles, and that will be the ounces that they give you,” he said, referring to meat portions he has had in meals.

Jennifer Norris, a directing attorney at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center with clients at multiple California detention centers, said it has gotten several complaints from clients in other facilities about the food being “inedible” and in one case “moldy.” The complaints come as some centers reach capacity with recent arrests, she said.

A woman named Rubimar, who asked that she and her husband, Jose, be identified by their first names only because he was deported Wednesday and fears fallout in Venezuela as a result of talking to the media, said Jose was detained by ICE in El Paso, Texas, for about three months and had complained about a lack of food there.

“He tells me many are given two spoonfuls of rice and that many are still hungry,” Rubimar said in an interview before Jose was deported to Venezuela.

Russian immigrant detainee Ilia Chernov said the conditions, including food, have gotten worse since he was detained at the Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana on July 24, 2024.

“The portions got smaller,” Chernov said through a Russian translator. “I have to deal with hunger, so I am getting used to the hunger. So I have lost weight.”

DHS said Winn Correctional Center has received no complaints from Russian detainees. However, Chernov’s lawyers said he has submitted complaints about food to ICE in writing, at least one as recently as April.

The detainees’ complaints are consistent with what advocates say they are hearing from other detainees and their lawyers across the country.

Liliana Chumpitasi, who runs a hotline for detainees at the immigration advocacy group La Resistencia in Washington state, said she gets 10 to 20 calls a day from ICE detainees complaining about conditions. They have told her that the meals used to be delivered on a regular schedule, such as 6 a.m. for breakfast and noon for lunch, but that now breakfast may not come until 9 a.m. and dinner is often not served until midnight. Some detainees have also said meals are now half the size they were last year, she said.

According to ICE’s food service standards, detainees are required to be served three meals a day, two of which are supposed to be hot, and with “no more than 14 hours between the evening meal and breakfast.”

Congress has funded ICE to detain up to 41,500 people, including facilities, food, staffing and supplies. But as of the week of July 7, ICE had over 57,000 detainees in its facilities across the country, according to ICE data. However, there is an expectation that more space will be added with the passage this month of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which allocates $45 billion for ICE detention centers until the end of September 2029. According to an estimate by the American Immigration Council, that amount could “likely fund an increase in ICE detention to at least 116,000 beds” per year.

Two other former ICE officials said the agency can hold more people than Congress has funded it for but only for short periods. A current senior ICE official, who asked not to be named to freely discuss ongoing funding issues, said the agency has pulled money from other parts of DHS to continue funding detention through Sept. 30.

Asked about specific allegations of food scarcity and substandard food, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told NBC News in a statement, “Any claim that there is lack of food or subprime conditions at ICE detention centers are false.”

“All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment and have opportunity to communicate with their family members and lawyers,” McLaughlin said. “Meals are certified by dieticians. Ensuring the safety, security and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE.”

‘Improper food handling practices’

In Tacoma, Washington, at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, Chumpitasi fears the increase in people being held there has contributed to poor food safety.

Seven food violations have been found there in 2025 so far, compared with two in 2024 and one in 2023, according to inspection data by the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department. According to ICE data, 1,081 people were detained there as of June 23, compared with 719 at the end of fiscal year 2024 and 570 at the end of fiscal year 2023. (The federal government’s fiscal year runs through Sept. 30.)

One morning in mid-April, the facility contacted the local Health Department to report 57 cases of suspected foodborne illness, with symptoms including diarrhea, stomachache and bloating, according to the Health Department. After an investigation, the department concluded that reheated collard greens that had been served at the facility had tested positive for Bacillus cereus, a bacterium that can cause food poisoning. The collard greens were a substitute food for that day and not posted on the day’s menu, according to health department documents. Food poisoning caused by Bacillus cereus is often related to leftover food that has been improperly cooled or reheated.

The Health Department went back to the Northwest Processing Center for an unannounced visit and found “several improper food handling practices.” It worked with the staff there to correct them, and as of June 18 the facility had passed inspection.

Asked about that, McLaughlin said in an email, “While the Health Department was notified, the on-site medical team concluded that there was no evidence linking the illness to a specific food item, as claimed by the detainees.”

‘I am getting used to the hunger’

Over the past month, the American Immigration Lawyers Association has received at least a dozen food-related complaints from advocacy groups and lawyers representing detainees across the country, according to Dojaquez-Torres.

“The common complaint is that there is just not enough food,” she said in an interview. “What I am hearing is that there are extended periods of time when people are not being fed, and when they are, they are being given chips or a slice of bread.”

“We have been getting reports from around the country from our members … and conditions have been declining rapidly,” she said. She also said that some detainees haven’t been given beds and that some have said they aren’t given access to showers.

In early June, a “melee” broke out in Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, because of conditions inside the facility, which included “paltry meals served at irregular hours,” according to The New York Times, which spoke to several lawyers representing detainees inside the facility and family members.

Geo Group pushed back against the Times’ reporting in an emailed statement at the time, saying, “Contrary to current reporting, there has been no widespread unrest at the facility.”

DHS also denied allegations of food issues at the Newark immigration detention facility when NBC News asked about them.

“Allegations that there are chronic food shortages at Delaney Hall are unequivocally false. The facility regularly reviews any detainee complaints. The Food Service Operations Director conducted a review of food portions and detainees are being fed the portions as prescribed by the nutritionist, based on a daily 2400 to 2600 caloric intake,” McLaughlin said.

DHS didn’t respond to a follow-up question about how recently the food service operations director — or any oversight body reviewing food in ICE detention facilities nationwide — had last visited and made an assessment.

In late May, Rubimar said, her husband, Jose, had called and told her that the gas at his facility wasn’t functioning and that they had been given only a bag of tuna to eat in the meantime. But even before that, she said, her husband said the food was “too little.”

McLaughlin said a dietitian had recently approved the meal plan at the El Paso Service Processing Center and indicated “the total caloric intake for ICE detainees at the facility was 3,436 per day — which exceeds the average daily recommended minimums.”

LaSalle Corrections, which operates the Winn Correctional Center, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The GEO Group, which operates the ICE facilities in Newark and Tacoma, as well as the Golden State Annex and many others nationwide, didn’t respond to specific allegations about food service and instead provided this statement: “We are proud of the role our company has played for 40 years to support the law enforcement mission of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Over the last four decades, our innovative support service solutions have helped the federal government implement the policies of seven different Presidential Administrations. In all instances, our support services are monitored by ICE, including on-site agency personnel, and other organizations within the Department of Homeland Security to ensure strict compliance with ICE detention standards.”

Reduced oversight

Beyond overcrowding, immigration advocates also blame the alleged food issues at detention facilities in part on cutbacks to a team of inspectors inside DHS.

The Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, an office that previously oversaw conditions inside ICE and ICE-contracted facilities, was entirely or mainly shuttered this year after the “majority of the workforce” was issued reduction-in-force notices, according to ongoing litigation regarding the cuts.

“One of the things that made the [Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman] is that we actually had case managers in the facilities and they were accessible to the detainees,” a former DHS employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of concerns about future government employment. “They would actually go into the kitchen [to see] if there were deficiencies and work with kitchen management.”

Karla Gilbride, a lawyer with Public Citizen, a nonprofit advocacy group suing the Trump administration over the firings of people in the office, said the office has been completely dismantled.

“That is our position, that they have shut down the office. They put everyone on leave. They were told to stop interacting with everyone who filed complaints” from detention, Gilbride said.

The former DHS employee said the dismantling of the ombudsman’s office means detainees have fewer options if they have complaints or concerns about things like food, overcrowding, sanitation, access to legal counsel and clean clothes.

“At the end of the day, it really just means that there are less people to sound an alarm,” the former DHS employee said.

McLaughlin didn’t respond to requests for comment about the dismantling of the ombudsman’s office. DHS has maintained in court filings that the ombudsman’s office remains open and that efforts to restaff certain positions affected by the layoffs are underway.

In a status report filed in court in early July, government lawyers said they are onboarding three new employees at the ombudsman’s office and that files have been created for all new complaints since the end of March.

There have been way too many of these complaints about insuffieient and low quality food at the ICE detention centers. Outside investigation (international Red Cross?) is needed.

Immigrants in overcapacity ICE detention say they’re hungry, raise food quality concerns
As the Trump administration ramps up immigration arrests, recent detainees and advocacy groups are raising concerns about food in ICE facilities nationwide.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/immigrants-overcapacity-ice-detention-say-hungry-raise-food-quality-co-rcna214193

Salon: “Cried every night”: ICE detains child with leukemia

Posted on by
Reply

As part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, a young cancer patient and his family were detained, despite adhering to every rule of the immigration process. The boy’s lawyer says the family’s experience puts to lie the Trump administration’s claims about deportation.

In May, a 6-year-old boy from Honduras who had been suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia since the age of three was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, alongside his family, immediately after a court hearing on May 29. Their case was dismissed at the hearing, per instructions from Trump, who directed judges to dismiss the cases of immigrants who have been in the country for less than two years so that ICE can move to deport them. On July 2, the family was released after significant pressure from the public and media coverage of the detention.

Elora Mukherjee, an attorney who represented the boy and his family, told Salon that the boy and his 9-year-old sister “cried every night in detention.” At the same time, the government pursued an expedited removal, a process by which the government deports someone without a hearing before a judge.

“The Trump administration’s policy of detaining people at courthouses who are doing everything right, who are entirely law-abiding, who are trying to fulfill all the requirements that the US government asks of them — it violates our Constitution, it violates our federal laws. It also violates our sense of morality. Why are we targeting hundreds, if not thousands, of people, including children, who are doing everything right?” Mukherjee said.

Jeff Migliozzi, the communications director for Freedom for Immigrants, an immigrant advocacy organziation, told Salon that “The Trump administration’s aggressive quota of 3,000 daily immigration arrests — a policy pushed by hardliners in the White House like known white nationalist Stephen Miller — is terrorizing communities.”

“The administration is directing resources and personnel from every possible corner of the government to conduct a multi-agency detention and deportation campaign at unprecedented scale,” Migliozzi said.. “This destructive agenda touches every corner of American life and civil society, as more and more people, including those who have been in the US for decades and are pillars of their community, are suddenly snatched by masked agents and taken away to remote detention sites. Street operations are resource-intensive, so the administration has increasingly turned to bait-and-switch tactics to drive up the numbers. ICE is now relying more on arrests at scheduled check-ins and at courthouses. These practices underscore not only the cruelty of this administration’s policy, but of the outdated and unfair immigration system. Here you have people doing everything they can to follow the instructions given to them, and then the rug is pulled out from under them. The result is separated families and shattered lives.”

Despite living in Los Angeles, the family was kept at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas for over a month. The center had been closed under the Biden Administration, but has been reopened as part of Trump’s push to deport as many immigrants as possible.

In detention, Mukherjee said that the boy suffered from easy bruising and bone pain, both symptoms of leukemia, and missed a June 5 medical appointment related to his cancer treatment. His sister barely ate in detention, she added.

In response to a request for comment from Salon, Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, “ICE does not consider a six-year-old child a ‘flight risk’ or a ‘criminal’—that is a disgusting accusation and devoid of any reality. ”

McLaughlin claimed that the family entered the United States illegally and that “Any implications that ICE would deny a child proper medical care are FALSE,” adding that “ICE ALWAYS prioritizes the health, safety, and well-being of all detainees in its care.”

Bullshit!!! It’s all about cruelty and terror!

“On May 29, 2025, an immigration judge in California dismissed the family’s immigration case and they were served orders of expedited removal,” McLaughlin said. “ICE took custody of the family following the judge’s decision and pending further proceedings. The child arrived at the Dilley facility on May 30, 2025, and was seen by a nurse during intake. Fortunately, the child has not undergone chemotherapy in over a year and was seen regularly by medical personnel while at the Dilley facility. During this time, the family chose to appeal their case. On July 2, the child, his mother, and his sister were released on parole.”

The Dilley detention facility has been subject to renewed scrutiny as the Trump administration has sought to terminate the Flores Settlement, a 1990s-era policy stemming from the Supreme Court case Reno v. Flores, which set basic standards for the treatment of children in detention and required the government to release children from detention without unnecessary delay.

Recent testimony about conditions at ICE facilities has raised concerns over violations of the agreement, with one girl describing situations in which adults and children were fighting over an insufficient amount of water at one facility.

“We don’t get enough water. They put out a little case of water, and everyone has to run for it,” the girl said in testimony related to conditions in immigrant detention. “An adult here even pushed my little sister out of the way to get to the water first.”

Mukherjee said that the family had followed all the rules in coming to the United States, but were still arrested by ICE. And, despite claims from the Trump administration that they’re focusing their efforts on criminals, neither the small children nor the mother had been accused of a crime. The family arrived in the United States in October, applying for asylum after they faced death threats in Honduras. The names and details of the family have not been released due to the threats they face in Honduras.

“So this particular family did everything right. They came to the U.S. border after fleeing imminent and menacing death threats in their home country of Honduras. They didn’t cross the border illegally. They waited for permission to enter the United States using a CBP one appointment. At that point, DHS paroled the family into the United States, which necessarily entailed a determination that the family did not pose a danger to the community or a flight risk,” Mukherjee said. “The family did exactly what the federal government asked them to do.”

According to Mukherjee, as soon as the family stepped out of their May 29 hearing, plain clothes ICE officers detained them, a move that she said “clearly violates both the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment.”

“When Trump was campaigning for president, and since he’s become president, and high-level officials in the Department of Homeland Security constantly say that we are targeting the ‘worst of the worst,’” Mukherjee said. “These are the people who are doing everything right.”

Their release followed a suit filed by the mother of the family, demanding the family’s immediate release. Mukherjee told Salon that the family intends to continue its legal battle to remain in the United States.

“Cried every night”: ICE detains child with leukemia – Salon.com
The Trump administration is going after easy targets, including sick children, to meet its deportation quotas

https://www.salon.com/2025/07/14/cried-every-night-ice-traumatizes-a-child-with-leukemia

Immigrants in overcapacity ICE detention say they’re hungry, raise food quality concerns

Posted on by
Reply

As the Trump administration ramps up immigration arrests, recent detainees and advocacy groups are raising concerns about food in ICE facilities nationwide.

Immigrants being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in at least seven states are complaining of hunger, food shortages and spoiled food, detainees and immigration advocates say. They say some detainees have gotten sick; others say they have lost weight. In one facility, an incident involving detainees reportedly broke out in part because of food.

The food problems come amid overcrowding at ICE facilities tied to the Trump administration’s push to quickly ramp up immigration arrests. While capacity data isn’t publicly available for every ICE detention facility, nationwide figures on the availability of beds show a system beyond its overall capacity. As of mid-June, ICE was detaining nearly 60,000 people, almost 45% above the capacity provided for by Congress.

Although many of ICE’s detention centers are run by private contractors, the problems are happening all over the country regardless of who’s running a given facility, advocates say. A former ICE official told NBC News it is difficult for a facility to stay stocked with the right amount of food when, on any given day, it may face an unexpected surge of new detainees. While the agency can move money around to cover the cost of detaining more immigrants, planning for unexpected daily spikes can be difficult for facilities and could lead to food being served late or in small quantities, the former ICE official said.

On top of that, there are now fewer avenues for detainees to submit concerns while they are in ICE custody, advocates say, pointing to recent job cuts to an independent watchdog within the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency.

“We haven’t seen any company-specific trends,” said Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, practice and policy counsel with the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “It just goes to the overall detention system and how overcrowded the detention system is as a whole.”

Alfredo Parada Calderon, a Salvadoran man who has been detained for almost a year, says he has recently had meals that have left him feeling hungry.

Detainees have sometimes been given flavorless meat that is so finely ground that it is almost liquefied, he told NBC News from the Golden State Annex detention facility in California.

“It looks like little, small pebbles, and that will be the ounces that they give you,” he said, referring to meat portions he has had in meals.

Jennifer Norris, a directing attorney at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center with clients at multiple California detention centers, said it has gotten several complaints from clients in other facilities about the food being “inedible” and in one case “moldy.” The complaints come as some centers reach capacity with recent arrests, she said.

A woman named Rubimar, who asked that she and her husband, Jose, be identified by their first names only because he was deported Wednesday and fears fallout in Venezuela as a result of talking to the media, said Jose was detained by ICE in El Paso, Texas, for about three months and had complained about a lack of food there.

“He tells me many are given two spoonfuls of rice and that many are still hungry,” Rubimar said in an interview before Jose was deported to Venezuela.

Russian immigrant detainee Ilia Chernov said the conditions, including food, have gotten worse since he was detained at the Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana on July 24, 2024.

“The portions got smaller,” Chernov said through a Russian translator. “I have to deal with hunger, so I am getting used to the hunger. So I have lost weight.”

DHS said Winn Correctional Center has received no complaints from Russian detainees. However, Chernov’s lawyers said he has submitted complaints about food to ICE in writing, at least one as recently as April.

The detainees’ complaints are consistent with what advocates say they are hearing from other detainees and their lawyers across the country.

Liliana Chumpitasi, who runs a hotline for detainees at the immigration advocacy group La Resistencia in Washington state, said she gets 10 to 20 calls a day from ICE detainees complaining about conditions. They have told her that the meals used to be delivered on a regular schedule, such as 6 a.m. for breakfast and noon for lunch, but that now breakfast may not come until 9 a.m. and dinner is often not served until midnight. Some detainees have also said meals are now half the size they were last year, she said.

According to ICE’s food service standards, detainees are required to be served three meals a day, two of which are supposed to be hot, and with “no more than 14 hours between the evening meal and breakfast.”

Congress has funded ICE to detain up to 41,500 people, including facilities, food, staffing and supplies. But as of the week of July 7, ICE had over 57,000 detainees in its facilities across the country, according to ICE data. However, there is an expectation that more space will be added with the passage this month of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which allocates $45 billion for ICE detention centers until the end of September 2029. According to an estimate by the American Immigration Council, that amount could “likely fund an increase in ICE detention to at least 116,000 beds” per year.

Two other former ICE officials said the agency can hold more people than Congress has funded it for but only for short periods. A current senior ICE official, who asked not to be named to freely discuss ongoing funding issues, said the agency has pulled money from other parts of DHS to continue funding detention through Sept. 30.

Asked about specific allegations of food scarcity and substandard food, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told NBC News in a statement, “Any claim that there is lack of food or subprime conditions at ICE detention centers are false.”

“All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment and have opportunity to communicate with their family members and lawyers,” McLaughlin said. “Meals are certified by dieticians. Ensuring the safety, security and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE.”

‘Improper food handling practices’

In Tacoma, Washington, at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, Chumpitasi fears the increase in people being held there has contributed to poor food safety.

Seven food violations have been found there in 2025 so far, compared with two in 2024 and one in 2023, according to inspection data by the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department. According to ICE data, 1,081 people were detained there as of June 23, compared with 719 at the end of fiscal year 2024 and 570 at the end of fiscal year 2023. (The federal government’s fiscal year runs through Sept. 30.)

One morning in mid-April, the facility contacted the local Health Department to report 57 cases of suspected foodborne illness, with symptoms including diarrhea, stomachache and bloating, according to the Health Department. After an investigation, the department concluded that reheated collard greens that had been served at the facility had tested positive for Bacillus cereus, a bacterium that can cause food poisoning. The collard greens were a substitute food for that day and not posted on the day’s menu, according to health department documents. Food poisoning caused by Bacillus cereus is often related to leftover food that has been improperly cooled or reheated.

The Health Department went back to the Northwest Processing Center for an unannounced visit and found “several improper food handling practices.” It worked with the staff there to correct them, and as of June 18 the facility had passed inspection.

Asked about that, McLaughlin said in an email, “While the Health Department was notified, the on-site medical team concluded that there was no evidence linking the illness to a specific food item, as claimed by the detainees.”

‘I am getting used to the hunger’

Over the past month, the American Immigration Lawyers Association has received at least a dozen food-related complaints from advocacy groups and lawyers representing detainees across the country, according to Dojaquez-Torres.

“The common complaint is that there is just not enough food,” she said in an interview. “What I am hearing is that there are extended periods of time when people are not being fed, and when they are, they are being given chips or a slice of bread.”

“We have been getting reports from around the country from our members … and conditions have been declining rapidly,” she said. She also said that some detainees haven’t been given beds and that some have said they aren’t given access to showers.

In early June, a “melee” broke out in Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, because of conditions inside the facility, which included “paltry meals served at irregular hours,” according to The New York Times, which spoke to several lawyers representing detainees inside the facility and family members.

Geo Group pushed back against the Times’ reporting in an emailed statement at the time, saying, “Contrary to current reporting, there has been no widespread unrest at the facility.”

DHS also denied allegations of food issues at the Newark immigration detention facility when NBC News asked about them.

“Allegations that there are chronic food shortages at Delaney Hall are unequivocally false. The facility regularly reviews any detainee complaints. The Food Service Operations Director conducted a review of food portions and detainees are being fed the portions as prescribed by the nutritionist, based on a daily 2400 to 2600 caloric intake,” McLaughlin said.

DHS didn’t respond to a follow-up question about how recently the food service operations director — or any oversight body reviewing food in ICE detention facilities nationwide — had last visited and made an assessment.

In late May, Rubimar said, her husband, Jose, had called and told her that the gas at his facility wasn’t functioning and that they had been given only a bag of tuna to eat in the meantime. But even before that, she said, her husband said the food was “too little.”

McLaughlin said a dietitian had recently approved the meal plan at the El Paso Service Processing Center and indicated “the total caloric intake for ICE detainees at the facility was 3,436 per day — which exceeds the average daily recommended minimums.”

LaSalle Corrections, which operates the Winn Correctional Center, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The GEO Group, which operates the ICE facilities in Newark and Tacoma, as well as the Golden State Annex and many others nationwide, didn’t respond to specific allegations about food service and instead provided this statement: “We are proud of the role our company has played for 40 years to support the law enforcement mission of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Over the last four decades, our innovative support service solutions have helped the federal government implement the policies of seven different Presidential Administrations. In all instances, our support services are monitored by ICE, including on-site agency personnel, and other organizations within the Department of Homeland Security to ensure strict compliance with ICE detention standards.”

Reduced oversight

Beyond overcrowding, immigration advocates also blame the alleged food issues at detention facilities in part on cutbacks to a team of inspectors inside DHS.

The Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, an office that previously oversaw conditions inside ICE and ICE-contracted facilities, was entirely or mainly shuttered this year after the “majority of the workforce” was issued reduction-in-force notices, according to ongoing litigation regarding the cuts.

“One of the things that made the [Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman] is that we actually had case managers in the facilities and they were accessible to the detainees,” a former DHS employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of concerns about future government employment. “They would actually go into the kitchen [to see] if there were deficiencies and work with kitchen management.”

Karla Gilbride, a lawyer with Public Citizen, a nonprofit advocacy group suing the Trump administration over the firings of people in the office, said the office has been completely dismantled.

“That is our position, that they have shut down the office. They put everyone on leave. They were told to stop interacting with everyone who filed complaints” from detention, Gilbride said.

The former DHS employee said the dismantling of the ombudsman’s office means detainees have fewer options if they have complaints or concerns about things like food, overcrowding, sanitation, access to legal counsel and clean clothes.

“At the end of the day, it really just means that there are less people to sound an alarm,” the former DHS employee said.

McLaughlin didn’t respond to requests for comment about the dismantling of the ombudsman’s office. DHS has maintained in court filings that the ombudsman’s office remains open and that efforts to restaff certain positions affected by the layoffs are underway.

In a status report filed in court in early July, government lawyers said they are onboarding three new employees at the ombudsman’s office and that files have been created for all new complaints since the end of March.

Immigrants in overcapacity ICE detention say they’re hungry, raise food quality concerns
As the Trump administration ramps up immigration arrests, recent detainees and advocacy groups are raising concerns about food in ICE facilities nationwide.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/immigrants-overcapacity-ice-detention-say-hungry-raise-food-quality-co-rcna214193

CNN: California farmworker dies after falling from greenhouse roof during chaotic ICE raid

Posted on by
Reply

A farmworker who fell from a greenhouse roof during a chaotic ICE raid this week at a California cannabis facility died Saturday of his injuries.

Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first known person to die during one of the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration enforcement operations. Yesenia Duran, Alanis’ niece, confirmed his death to The Associated Press.

Duran posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe that her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to a wife and daughter in Mexico. Alanis worked at the farm for 10 years, his family said.

The United Farm Workers reported Alanis’ death prematurely late Friday. The Ventura County Medical Center later issued a statement authorized by the family saying he was still on life support.

“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorize American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the UFW said recently in a statement on the social platform X. The union does not represent workers at the raided farm.

The Department of Homeland Security said it executed criminal search warrants Thursday at Glass House Farms facilities in Camarillo and Carpinteria. Glass House is a licensed cannabis grower. The farm in Camarillo also grows tomatoes and cucumbers.

Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly was fleeing agents before he fell about 30 feet from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.

Agents arrested some 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, DHS said in a statement. Alanis was not among them, the agency said.

“This man was not in and has not been in CBP or ICE custody,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30 feet. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”

Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers,” according to DHS, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.

During the raid crowds of people gathered outside the facility in Camarillo to seek information about their relatives and protest immigration enforcement. Authorities clad in military-style helmets and uniforms faced off with the demonstrators, and people ultimately retreated amid acrid green and white billowing smoke.

Glass House said in a statement that immigration agents had valid warrants. The company said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.

“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it said.

The business was co-founded by Graham Farrar and Kyle Kazan. Farrar has donated to California Democrats including Gov. Gavin Newsom, a vocal critic of Republican President Donald Trump, according to campaign finance records. Kazan has donated to both Democrats and Republicans.

California farmworker dies after falling from greenhouse roof during chaotic ICE raid | CNN
A farmworker who fell from a greenhouse roof during a chaotic ICE raid this week at a California cannabis facility died Saturday of his injuries.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/13/us/farmworker-dies-california-immigration-raids-hnk

Independent: Judges are deporting record numbers of young children under Trump

Posted on by
Reply

A far cry from the “bad, hard criminals” Donald Trump said his undocumented immigrants crackdown would focus on, record-breaking numbers of deportation orders have been issued to young immigrant children under the Trump administration, The Independent can reveal.

More kids aged 11 or under — 8,317 — received a removal order from an immigration court in April than any other month in over 35 years of data collection, according to court data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

Since Trump’s inauguration in January, judges have ordered removals for over 53,000 immigrant minors.

Those children are predominantly elementary school age or younger. Some 15,000 children were aged under four years old, and 20,000 of them were children aged four to eleven.

Teenagers are also experiencing climbing deportations, with 17,000 seeing a court-ordered removal, although that’s lower than their all-time peak in 2020 under the first Trump administration.

Some of these children being deported are unaccompanied minors, who do not have a legal guardian in the US; though the exact number is unclear, since immigration authorities stopped recording this data years ago.

Children, including toddlers, are required to show up at immigration hearings to be questioned by a judge – and many, unsurprisingly, do not understand what is happening nor the gravity of their situation.

In one case, a source tells the Independent, a young child from Haiti had his immigration court hearing remotely in front of a screen. The child, who had a learning disability, was fidgeting and running around the room. Finally, he pointed at the judge on the screen and asked – “Who’s that?”

In other cases, children are being arrested by ICE with their families, but held in detention and deported separately.

“A six year old child was picked up [by ICE] with his father, separated from his dad, and parked in custody for four months before being deported,” a lawyer familiar with children’s immigration cases told the Independent. The child was unable to receive legal assistance, as he was deported while federal legal funding had been cut.

The deportation outcome rate for immigrant children under age 11 is higher than in any other age group, latest figures show, and has jumped significantly since Trump came into office.

What’s more, under-18s account for one in four (26 percent) of all deportations ordered in immigration court since January – despite the fact that minors make up just 11 percent of the undocumented population.

The vast majority (76 percent) of children under 11 do not have legal representation, and cases are being sped through the system, according to sources close to the courts.

“This is pumping up the deportation numbers on the back of kids – their rights to safety and due process are not respected,” the immigration lawyer told the Independent.

“This is about striking fear in the hearts of everybody. It’s demonstrable cruelty in the name of so-called deterrence.”

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin responded to the Independent:

“Accusations that ICE is ‘targeting’ children are FALSE and an attempt to demonize law enforcement. ICE does not ‘target’ children nor does it deport children. Rather than separate families, ICE asks mothers if they want to be removed with their children or if the child should be placed with someone safe the parent designates.”

Highest-ever deportations for young children

Immigration crackdowns across the country have been almost indiscriminate, with new data revealing that ICE is arresting more non-criminals than ever.

The number of people who have been deported under the Trump administration is murky; ICE has not disclosed official figures since January, and available immigration court data is not comprehensive, with age not recorded in 13 percent of cases.

But analysis of court data reveals that children have been increasingly, and disproportionately, marked for deportation in recent months.

Under the Trump administration, immigration courts have quickly ramped up deportation rates. Around two thirds (68 percent) of all immigration court proceedings ended in deportation in May, compared to 39 percent in January.

But for children under 11, the removal rate is even higher, at 75 percent in May; and 78 percent for kids under 4 years old, both substantially higher than the 45 percent seen on average for young kids in January.

This suggests that children are being disproportionately targeted for deportations under this administration, overrepresented by 2.3 times more than their proportion of the illegal immigrant population, our analysis shows.

“What we’re seeing right now is basically a grist mill in immigration court, just scooting kids through the process as quickly as possible,” the lawyer, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Independent.

At the same time, children facing immigration court are more vulnerable and less protected than ever.

In spite of this, the Trump administration has been fighting to cancel funding which provides legal aid for unaccompanied immigrant children.

The government first issued a stop-work order in February, and cancelled federal contracts in March. In April the federal district court ordered the Trump administration to restore funding, saying it is congressionally mandated under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA).

Legal assistance programs told the Independent that they had since been re-contracted; but remain on “pins and needles” as the government appeals the court ruling, and Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill makes it harder and more expensive to sue against his policies.

Rocket dockets and separating families

In the meantime, children are being put on expedited paths through immigration court, known as “rocket dockets”, according to the immigration lawyer.

Many of these cases are going through in just two weeks from start to finish – which leaves little-to-no room for a child to prepare the necessary documents and arguments.

“Of course, a child is going to file a case that’s not completely fleshed out in all the legal arguments, because they don’t understand the legal argument,” the lawyer told the Independent.

“This is also really damaging for trafficking victims. Kids who have experienced severe trauma need the time to have their nervous system relax, to understand that they’re safe, to share some of the most sensitive details about their cases.”

These tactics evoke the family separation policy, employed in 2018 under the first Trump administration, which forcibly kept parents and children apart when detained at the border – with as many as 1,360 families never reunited, according to Human Rights Watch.

“It is seen as against the due process rights of a child to be systematically separated from their parent or legal guardian,” the lawyer explained.

“What’s clear is that they are sidestepping the legal settlement to protect children from these cruel techniques.”

The Independent is the world’s most free-thinking news brand, providing global news, commentary and analysis for the independently-minded. We have grown a huge, global readership of independently minded individuals, who value our trusted voice and commitment to positive change. Our mission, making change happen, has never been as important as it is today.

Judges are deporting record numbers of young children under Trump
Exclusive: Immigration judges broke records with the number of young children they have ordered removed from the US in April —with lawyers accusing Trump of “pumping up deportation numbers on the backs of kids, data correspondent Alicja Hagopian reports

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-immigration-child-deportation-numbers-b2786626.html

New York Post: Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ will ‘turbocharge’ mass deportations with hiring of 10K new ICE agents: WH

Posted on by
Reply

ICE will “turbocharge” its arrests and deportations of illegal migrants roaming the country when President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act is passed, administration officials said Tuesday.

The nearly 900-page megabill — which was approved by the Senate on Tuesday — will allow ICE to hire 10,000 new officers and double its capacity to detain illegal immigrants. It also offers a $10,000 a year bonus for immigration agents, according to the White House.

Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ will ‘turbocharge’ mass deportations with hiring of 10K new ICE agents: WH
The nearly 900-page megabill will allow ICE to hire 10,000 new officers and double its capacity to detain illegal immigrants. It also offers a $10,000 a year bonus for immigration agents, according…

https://nypost.com/2025/07/01/us-news/big-beautiful-bill-will-turbocharge-mass-deportations-wh

Charlotte Observer: ‘Victory’: DHS Praises SCOTUS Ruling on Deportations

Posted on by
Reply

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled to allow the Trump administration to fast-track deportations to third countries like Sudan without notice or a chance to contest. The 6-3 ruling drew dissent from Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who warned it risks torture or death for deportees.

This is simply inhumane. And it will come back to haunt us big time.

…

Sotomayor wrote, “The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard.”

As some countries have refused deportees, the administration has utilized third-country agreements. Immigrant advocates warned the Supreme Court ruling weakens due process and risks deportees’ safety.

 Sotomayor wrote, “Apparently, the court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in far-flung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a district court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled.”

‘Victory’: DHS Praises SCOTUS Ruling on Deportations
More for You

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/victory-dhs-praises-scotus-ruling-on-deportations/ss-AA1HMtgW