Immigration enforcement harms children, drives family separation, speakers at Democratic forum say

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.