FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Melissa Stek, communications consultant, melissa@mountgem.com
Tom Salyers, Director of Communications, tsalyers@clasp.org
Washington, DC, October 5, 2025—On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alerted legal service providers serving immigrant children of their plans to incentivize the children to leave the country and abandon their legal rights to seek safety in the United States. It is reported that the plan targets unaccompanied children—that is, children who came to the U.S. alone or were separated by the U.S. government from their caregiver—in U.S. custody aged 14 and older.
Wendy Cervantes, Director of Immigration and Immigrant Families at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) and co-lead of the Children Thrive Action Network (CTAN) issued the following statement:
“For years, there has been strong bipartisan support for laws that protect children from trafficking and abuse. But in a confusing message from the federal government, this plan dissuades children from accessing these legal protections, and in effect, pays them to return to the harm that they fled in the first place. This in and of itself is abusive. No matter where a child is from, they should be surrounded by caring adults and institutions that center their best interest. This is particularly true for children and youth facing complex, highly consequential legal processes—the outcome of which could mean life or death. We need policies and practices in place that prioritize keeping children safe every step of the way.”
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The Children Thrive Action Network (CTAN) is a national network of children’s advocacy organizations and service providers committed to protecting and defending children in immigrant families, guided by policy principles to ensure that immigration policies safeguard children’s health, safety, and well-being. Since 2020, CTAN has urged federal and state officials to advance the “best interest of the child” in all policies and to reject policies that put children in harm’s way and undermine their safety.
