FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Melissa Stek, Communications Consultant, melissa@mountgem.com
Tom Salyers, Director of Communications, tsalyers@clasp.org
Washington, DC, Tuesday, May 19—Through the budget reconciliation process, Congressional leaders are pushing forward harmful funding proposals and will vote this week to potentially hand the federal government’s immigration agencies an additional $62 billion for detention and family separation—on top of the $170 billion they received last year.
As advocates for children, we have seen how this funding harms children and their families. Since the start of President Trump’s second term, the Brookings Institute estimates that 205,000 children have had a parent detained, including at least 145,000 U.S. citizen children. Dozens of children have been harmed by tear gas or pepper spray from reckless immigration actions. Thousands of kids and families have been locked up in cruel and unnecessary immigrant detention camps, including over 70 children who were detained in the federal government’s heightened operations in Minnesota earlier this year.
Recent research has repeatedly shown that this cruel misuse of public dollars has caused widespread harm to kids, families, care providers, educators, students, and entire communities in need of federal investment in child care, education, food assistance, health care, housing, and other supports that help all children and their families thrive.
Members of the Children Thrive Action Network (CTAN) issued the following statements:
Wendy Cervantes, Director of Immigration and Immigrant Families, Center for Law and Social Policy:
“Over the last 16 months, families across the country have watched in horror as federal immigration agents raided neighborhoods, schools, child care centers, and workplaces. Tens of thousands of children have had their parents torn from them in an instant. Primary caregivers and breadwinners have been deported or detained in abysmal conditions, or even been killed in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, leaving behind traumatized children and requiring educators, child care providers, and community members to pick up the pieces. These acts of terror were funded by the billions that Congress poured into the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last year. Over the last several months, the nation decried these publicly funded horrors and demanded ‘ICE out’ of our communities, pushing Congress to deliver a funding bill without any new money for ICE and Border Patrol. While the administration has shifted its tactics, the impacts remain the same: Children are being orphaned, family stability is being uprooted, and schools and child care centers are no longer the safe havens they once were. Congress must prioritize the needs of our nation’s children and continue to reject additional funding for immigration operations.”
Stephanie Ettinger de Cuba, Executive Director, Children’s HealthWatch:
“When a parent is separated from the rest of their family, economic hardship, stress, and material deprivation follow. Our research shows that family stress and material deprivation harm young children’s physical health and cognitive, motor, and socio-emotional development, increase their risk of food and housing insecurity, and create a chilling effect that prevents families from seeking health care and other basic supports. Children cannot thrive with fear and instability. Congress should reject aggressive immigration enforcement and family separation policies and any proposals that expand detention and enforcement at the expense of investments that help children grow up healthy, safe, and secure.”
Megan Barolet-Fogarty, VP of Programs, Centro Hispano de East Tennessee:
“At Centro Hispano, there is not a single family in our programs that has not been impacted in some way by the increase in immigration enforcement activity and anti-immigrant sentiment. We are seeing rising anxiety, school absences, mental health challenges, family separation, and economic hardship—all of which directly harm children’s ability to learn and thrive. Research is clear: The best return on public investment comes from supporting children and families through education, health, and prevention—not from policies that separate families and create lasting trauma.”
Lillie Hinkle, Manager, Federal Policy, Acacia Center for Justice:
“In a nation grappling with a cost-of-living crisis and where working families are forced to make impossible choices between food on the table and gas in the tank, Congress is forcing a vote on even more taxpayer dollars for deportation and detention. Last summer, Congress voted to give the Trump Administration a record $170 billion through a budget reconciliation effort laden with harmful provisions. This prior funding empowered ICE and Border Patrol to ramp up their attacks on children, separate families, expand family detention, and fast-track children’s deportation without due process, making children across the country less safe. Even more funding for ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) underscores the administration’s intent to deport children rather than protect them. An administration that strips kids of due process, uses them as bait to deport their loved ones, and contravenes trafficking protections at almost every turn does not care about children. In the absence of accountability measures and protective guardrails, allocating more money to ICE and CBP’s bloated budgets is not only economically irresponsible but also poses significant risks for exceptionally vulnerable children. Congress must firmly oppose any attempts to further harm children with unchecked enforcement and detention.”
Mel Wilson, Senior Policy Advisor, National Association of Social Workers:
“Since the first day of the current Trump Administration—with Mass Deportation executive orders—families in communities nationwide and many concerned Americans have been shocked at the sight of federal immigration agents brazenly raiding neighborhoods, schools, child care centers, and workplaces. Tens of thousands of children have been traumatized as their parents have been separated from them instantaneously. Under the horrific Mass Deportation program, primary caregivers and those depended upon for family support have been deported or detained—sometimes forcibly—in abysmal conditions. As a result, separated children have been left behind, traumatized, and depending on educators, child welfare professionals, child care providers, and community members to pick up the pieces. We feel that DHS must shift immigration priorities away from Mass Deportation and towards addressing the needs of our nation’s children separated from their parents or primary caregivers.”
Martin Kim, Director of Immigration Advocacy, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC:
“This administration’s relentless attack on immigrant communities has swept up hundreds of thousands of people and their families, including many Asian Americans. Voting for billions of dollars of additional funding for immigration agencies, especially after Congress already provided $170 billion to these agencies last year, will drastically hurt children and their families. The scope of this harm is staggering: Hundreds of thousands of children have had a parent detained by immigration agencies. Others have had parents or loved ones arrested, detained, deported, or even killed. This harm is also deeply racialized: As just one example, ICE and CBP agents went door to door in Minnesota, looking for ‘Asian families’ to arrest and detain. Empowering these discriminatory and violent agencies is the last thing our communities need. Instead, we urge policy makers to focus on funding that centers families and children, and to reject unnecessary and un-American funding for immigration enforcement.”
Maribel Ramos, Senior Director of Government Relations, National Women’s Law Center Action Fund:
“Instead of investing in essential programs that support families, Donald Trump and Republican leaders are directing even more taxpayer dollars toward efforts that traumatize children and tear families apart. We urge Congress to do right by our children by rejecting this excessive funding for ICE and instead focus on investing in health care, nutrition assistance, and child care, which will help women and families make ends meet while improving children’s well-being.”
Anali Alegria, Director of Federal Advocacy, Child Care for Every Family Network:
“Right now, families, including immigrant families, are struggling to find and afford child care, while child care providers and early childhood educators—many of whom are immigrant women—struggle to stay afloat. But instead of addressing this child care crisis, Congressional Republicans are voting to send even more money to ICE and CBP and further attack immigrant families and communities. It’s disgraceful. If members of Congress cared about children, they would invest in the child care system that families deserve, instead of using taxpayer money to send ICE agents into preschools and child care centers, detain child care providers on their way to work, and tear immigrant families apart.”
Liza M. Davis, Advocacy Director for Children in Immigrant Families, The Children’s Partnership:
“The health and well-being of all children depend on safe, stable, and welcoming communities. Increasing funding for harmful immigration operations moves us further from that goal by fueling fear and disruption for all children and families, especially in immigrant communities. No child should have to live with the stress and uncertainty that comes from policies that separate families or create barriers to accessing care, education, and basic supports. Congress must oppose additional money for immigration agencies that harm children and instead invest in the conditions that allow all children and families to thrive: health, stability, opportunity, and belonging.”
Melissa Adamson, Senior Attorney, National Center for Youth Law:
“Children belong in homes, schools, and playgrounds—not detention centers. Children detained by ICE at the Dilley Family Detention Center are living under constant surveillance, enduring relentless stress and uncertainty, absorbing their parents’ fear, and spending long days without meaningful education, activity, structure, or support. More money for ICE means more children and families trapped in detention centers where inhumane conditions can cause lasting trauma. Instead of investing billions more in detention and enforcement, lawmakers should prioritize policies that protect children, uphold due process, and strengthen the well-being of families and communities.”
Sierra Kraft, Executive Director, Immigrant Children Advocates’ Relief Effort (ICARE):
“No child should be collateral damage in a political agenda. Handing $70 billion more to agencies that have already separated hundreds of thousands of children from their parents is not governance—it is cruelty with a price tag. These children carry the trauma of that separation for life, and our communities carry the cost. ICARE demands Congress reject this funding and redirect it where it belongs: into the health, stability, and futures of our nation’s children.”
Becky Pringle, President, National Education Association (NEA):
“Instead of investing in students by ensuring public schools have needed resources and educators can make ends meet, Republicans in Congress are spending billions of dollars for rogue ICE actions and President Trump’s out-of-touch pet projects. Congress must reject this bill of misplaced priorities, which shortchanges students, weakens communities, and fuels harmful immigration policies that tear families apart.”
Azadeh Erfani, Policy Director, National Immigrant Justice Center:
“When Congress bankrolls ICE and Border Patrol, children suffer. This is not incidental to their operations. These agencies have consistently shown callous disregard for the care and love children need and deserve. Members of Congress must center children’s rights when they vote. Any vote for this funding bill will inflict irreparable harms to children and give ICE and Border Patrol an even bigger blank check to continue to terrorize our communities.”
Mina Dixon Davis, Senior Policy Analyst, Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights:
“Every child deserves to grow up safe, free, and supported by loving family and community. We see firsthand how funding for DHS instead strips children of due process, destabilizes their sense of security, and inflicts long-term harm on their development and well-being. Congress should reject this harmful expansion of funding for DHS and instead invest in community-based supports, legal representation, and child-centered services that uphold the best interests of every child and allow families to remain together and thrive.”
