By More than 3,800 children, including 20 infants, were detained by U.S. immigration authorities from January to October 2025, according to data shared by the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic.
A forum hosted by Senate Democrats spotlighted trauma experienced by children who have been detained or separated from their families during immigration enforcement operations across the country.
According to data shared by Immigrants’ Rights Clinic Director Elora Mukherjee during the March 17 forum, more than 3,800 children, including 20 infants, were detained by immigration authorities from January to October 2025. Mukherjee has represented 68 children and parents detained at the Family Detention Center in Dilley, Texas, where she said her youngest clients “have been babies and toddlers.”
The forum, titled, “The Kids Are Not Alright: How Mass Deportation is Traumatizing Children,” was hosted by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois.
Despite 20 days being “the general legal limit” for how long a child may accompany his or her parent in federal immigration custody, Mukherjee said more than 900 children have been detained past the 20-day mark and 270 children past 40 days. She cited multiple cases of children who have been detained for longer than 100 days.
“Dilley is a hellhole,” she said. “It’s a prison for babies, toddlers, and children. Children and parents detained at Dilley do not have access to sufficient drinking water. Children and parents detained at Dilley have found live worms, bugs, and mold in their meals.” She said lights are kept on in the facility through the night, making it difficult to sleep.
The Department of Homeland Security has vigorously denied allegations of subprime conditions. EWTN News reached out to the department for comment on the allegations mentioned in the forum but did not receive a response by time of publication.
Mukherjee said the facility is run by CoreCivic, a for-profit prison corporation that receives $180 million annually from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“Children and families should be immediately released from Dilley. Alternatives to detention programs are far more cost effective and humane than detaining children,” she said. “Protecting children from needless cruelty is not an enormous ask. It is what our humanity demands of us.”
Clinical psychologist Lisa Fortuna testified during the forum that children held in detention centers often “present with trauma, hyper vigilance, sleep disturbance, depression, and persistent anxiety about their safety and future.” She also listed school disengagement, learning problems, and disruption in health care” among immigrant children as a result of enforcement operations.
“The psychological burden created by uncertainty, family separation, chronic fear,” she said, “can profoundly shape children’s emotional and development and their sense of safety and stability.”
Maria Heavener, a first-grade teacher at Funston Elementary School in Chicago, told senators about ICE officers’ use of tear gas near school buildings and around children in Chicago during the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz.
Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, praised those who testified and cited a Bible verse he said was sent to him by a priest friend earlier in the day: “When an alien resides with you in your land, do not molest him. You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you who have the same love for him as for yourself. For you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:33-34).
“That’s the responsibility that we have and that’s the responsibility that we’re trained to uphold,” he said.
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Those at this forum are endangering us, our families and our children. They protect people whose first moral act in the u.s. is to disregard and violate our laws by entering illegally; then lowering wages for americans, crowding schools, overtaxing health systems (notice how much longer it takes now to get an appointment with your doctor), raising rents and housing costs, with 50% of illegal alien families on welfare, far higher than the average for non illegals (see below the information),
not to mention the stealing of billios of taxpayer dollars as in Minnesota and California (see information below), or “non-violelnt crimes” such as dwi, fraud, theft, identity theft, drug trafficking, child pornography possession, and some forms of human trafficking and child molestation
or the horrible crimes, such as:
The office of the tennessee district attorneys general conference has released its annual state immigration report revealing that in 2025, illegal migrants committed 2,183 violent offenses, including 41 homicides, 145 sexual offenses, 11 child rapes, and more. tennessee releases staggering stats on migrant crime
https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2026/02/02/tennessee-releases-staggering-stats-migrant-crime/
An illegal alien accused of raping and murdering 13-year-old oscar hernandez last year in the sanctuary state of california has been hit with additional child rape charges involving two other teen boys.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/02/12/sanctuary-california-illegal-alien-hit-with-more-child-rape-charges-after-allegedly-murdering-boy/
414 Illegal Alien Child Sex Offenders Arrested in Houston During President Trump’s First Year
ICE: 414 Illegal Alien Child Sex Offenders Arrested in Houston
Illegal Alien Arrested for Sexually Assaulting 14-Year-Old Girl in Swank Utah Ski Town
24-year-old arrested, accused of sexually assaulting Park City High School student
EWTN is promoting lies. They’re now the Catholic equivalent of CNN.
Wallet closing. The same Senate Democrats that would run a similarly falsely lachrymose “forum” on “reproductive rights” and “gender affirming care’.
Author Bio:
Benedictine College
Bachelor of Arts – BA, French Language and Literature Bachelor of Arts – BA, French Language and Literature
Aug 2019 – May 2023
She should have studied Psittacology.
From what I can see is they just asked for a comment?
Female US citizens are routinely pulled from their families when they are incarcerated. Also, the Dems should playback what Hillary and Obama said about illegal immigration being unsustainable.
I appreciate that the Register tries to keep balance. That’s why I support it.
Ditto for CWR.
Balance is examining the claims for attributes such as coherence, consistency, validity, not being a stenographer.
Yes, and in this case, they don’t even acknowledge the indisputable fact that 300,000 “unaccompanied” children are lost and unaccounted for. Defenders of this madness claim the problem is due to lost paperwork, so they should not really be considered “lost”.
How stupid and evil do you have to be to implicitly deny that an unaccompanied child entering a foreign nation is already a child lost in the world, and subject to any and all forms of abuse and exploitation?
Yes, and in this case, they don’t even acknowledge the indisputable fact that 300,000 “unaccompanied” children are lost and unaccounted for. Families dispossessing their children, are not the cause of government.
Virtue signalling defenders of this madness claim the problem is due to lost paperwork, so the children should not really be considered “lost”.
How stupid and evil do you have to be to implicitly deny that an unaccompanied child entering a foreign nation is already a child lost in the world, and subject to any and all forms of abuse and exploitation?
The above should have read: Families dispossessing their children, are not because of government seperations.
The Flores Settlement agreement, which prohibits children from being detained at the border for longer than 20 days, has been abused by fake asylum seekers for many years.
It is the biggest incentive for child trafficking. It urges parents in their home countries to rent or sell their children to childless border crossers (and cartels) to use as tickets for faster processing.
Technically, a child cannot be released without the adult accompanying the child, but once freed as a family unit, the adult often throws away the “ticket” as they disappear into the interior of the country.
The government is required to release minors to family members or other qualified custodians whenever possible. These families or custodians are more often illegal aliens themselves, who are in hiding or otherwise unavailable. Nobody knows for sure where the child could end. The child could be abandoned, recycled to those who need a ticket, or simply disappear.
The Flores settlement should work both ways; not just on entering the country, but also on leaving. Illegal aliens with children, whether their own or not, should be the first to be deported/repatriated to their home countries.
“When an alien resides with you in your land, do not molest him. You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives…,” etc. (Leviticus 19:33-34). This has got to be the most abused verse in the OT by enablers of unlawful aliens, including US bishops and the pope.
An “alien who resides with you” means a LEGAL resident immigrant, not an illegal alien who violates immigration law on entry. There is a BIG difference.
“Who resides with you” means the alien has the host country’s approval to set up residence, work or do business, pay taxes, and enjoy privileges and protection afforded him by the law (usually, everything that a citizen has, except voting and engaging in the judicial system, until he becomes a naturalized US citizen.)
A legal resident alien files his application to immigrate at the US embassy in his home country; is vetted strenuously, required to show proofs of good health and no criminal records; the ability to provide for himself without being an economic burden to US society, and willingness to assimilate into the American culture. Then he is made to wait in line for DECADES until he is called and permitted to enter the country.
Whereas an illegal alien who jumps the border without any grounds for asylum, bringing nothing and expecting everything paid-for by US taxpayer, is a thief and a robber. John 10:1 “Anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber” should apply not just to fake shepherds (such as an invading enemy army) but to illegal alien sheep as well.