Detention of Minors Surges After Protections Rollback, Advocates Warn

(D.C., UNITED STATES) The Trump administration’s 2025 expansion of Immigration Enforcement has triggered a surge in the Detention of Minors, including children who were previously shielded by federal protections, according to immigrant advocates, court filings, and attorneys representing youth in custody. A series of policy shifts and record 2025 funding have led to the detention and attempted deportation of unaccompanied children, as well as teenagers with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, prompting emergency court interventions and allegations of unlawful arrests.

Congress approved $170 billion for immigration enforcement this year, including $45 billion earmarked to expand detention facilities. The larger budget coincided with a sharp rise in the number of people held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, from 38,265 in June 2024 to 57,861 in June 2025, with facilities operating nearly 45% above capacity, according to advocates tracking federal custody. About 90% of detainees are now held in for-profit centers run by companies including GEO Group and CoreCivic. Lawyers and children’s advocates say the mix of expanded capacity and new policy guidance has translated into more arrests of minors and wider use of detention in cases that would previously have been handled by child welfare officials or community-based programs.

In August, a federal judge issued an emergency restraining order after the Department of Homeland Security moved to deport more than 600 unaccompanied Guatemalan children from federal custody, many as young as 10, which advocates said defied a standing court order. In a hearing, the judge admonished the government’s conduct, stating,

“I have the government attempting to remove minor children from the country in the wee hours of the morning on a holiday weekend, which is surprising, but here we are.”

The National Immigrant Justice Center said the intervention halted a mass expulsion plan undertaken at night from U.S. government-run shelters.

“Judicial intervention stopped the Trump administration’s brazen attempt today to disregard due process and remove hundreds of children to Guatemala,”

the organization said, adding that children were “pulled from their beds at U.S. government-run shelters, loaded onto buses, transported to an airport, and placed on airplanes to be returned to Guatemala” in the middle of the night.

The administration’s policies represent a sharp break from practices under Former President Biden, who ended large-scale family detention and leaned on alternatives such as ankle monitors and community case management. In June, the government eliminated automatic consideration of deferred action and work authorization for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status recipients who are waiting for green cards, a move that immigration attorneys say has exposed previously protected minors to arrest and removal. Lawyers report that teenagers with court findings of parental abuse, neglect, or abandonment — the legal basis for SIJS — are being detained at routine check-ins or on their way to work.

One case involves 16-year-old Joel Camas of the Bronx, who was detained in September during a routine immigration check-in despite having SIJS based on findings of abandonment and abuse in Ecuador. His attorney, Beth Baltimore, said the government sought to remove him quickly, telling a court he would be “reunited with his family” in Ecuador. A judge issued a temporary restraining order to block his removal.

“One of the findings that a judge needs to make is that it’s in the best interest for this young person to remain in the U.S. I’ve never seen young people targeted in this way,”

Baltimore said. In Spring Valley, New York, 18-year-old Carlos Guerra Leon was arrested without a warrant in August while heading to work, despite SIJS and deferred action that ran through 2026, his attorneys say. He remains held at Jackson Parish Detention Center in Louisiana as he challenges what his lawyers describe as unlawful detention.

Children held in U.S. Customs and Border Protection sites — facilities designed only for short-term processing — have described conditions that a federal court has found unlawful. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee concluded the government was in “substantial noncompliance” with the Flores Settlement Agreement, which sets basic child welfare standards and limits on the length of custody, citing freezing temperatures and lights kept on all night. Attorneys said some children spent weeks or months in rooms with no access to daylight or outdoor recreation. One lawyer, Becky Wolozin, recounted that a child

“missed seeing the sun, and the only way he knew the time or day was by keeping track of a clock mounted on a guard surveillance station.”

Advocates say the administration’s approach is also reshaping the work of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the Health and Human Services agency that typically receives unaccompanied children from border agents and places them with vetted sponsors such as relatives. New enforcement policies have sought to allow ICE to deport children directly, even when relatives in the United States stand ready to sponsor them, a reversal of prior practice that required transfer to ORR custody and access to basic legal safeguards. Officials at ORR, which oversees the Unaccompanied Children program, have been navigating the impact of these shifts as courts weigh the legality of new steps by DHS; information about the program is available on the federal government’s Office of Refugee Resettlement Unaccompanied Children program page.

Court orders and litigation now frame much of the government’s authority over minors. Despite administration attempts to limit or terminate the Flores agreement, federal judges have reaffirmed that children must be processed promptly, transferred to appropriate custody, and released to safe sponsors where possible.

“These CBP facilities are cruel, barren, and psychologically scarring to children. No child should be in a prison for any amount of time. This order will help to shorten the imprisonment of children and move them promptly out of the worst and most traumatizing facilities,”

said Sarah Kahn, senior staff attorney at the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law. Leecia Welch, deputy litigation director at Children’s Rights, said,

“The district court’s ruling underscores the critical role of the Flores Settlement Agreement in protecting the safety and welfare of children in government custody… Without court oversight, children in immigration custody would be left entirely at the mercy of a government that has consistently betrayed them.”

The expansion of family detention, enabled by provisions in this year’s budget that allow indefinite detention of families awaiting removal, is also drawing fire from pediatricians, psychologists, and legal providers who warn of long-term harm to children. While the Flores settlement has long been interpreted as limiting children’s detention to 20 days, the 2025 budget language does not align with that cap, setting up continued court fights and potential clashes between DHS and federal judges overseeing compliance. Advocates say detaining children and parents together in prison-like settings undermines access to counsel, complicates asylum cases, and causes measurable anxiety and depression in both children and caregivers.

The government’s efforts to restrict legal support have added to concerns about due process. On March 21, 2025, the administration ordered a near-total halt to legal services for children in the Unaccompanied Alien Children program, actions that a federal judge temporarily reversed on April 1, 2025 by restoring funding. Groups that provide orientation, “know your rights” sessions, and legal screenings inside shelters said the interruption left children without basic information about their cases during a period of rapid policy change.

Enforcement tactics have widened beyond traditional arrest sites, according to immigrant rights organizations that document field operations. Lawyers report arrests at locations previously considered off-limits, including churches, schools, and immigration court hearings, and say some operations in the Chicago area swept up people without warrants, including U.S. citizens, during neighborhood raids. ICE has not publicly detailed the scope of these operations in the reports cited by advocates, but the presence of teenagers like Camas and Guerra Leon in county jails and remote detention centers has become a central rallying point for legal challenges.

The numbers trace how quickly the picture has shifted. ICE’s detainee population rose to 57,861 as of June 29, 2025, up from 38,265 a year earlier. Unaccompanied children encountered at the southwest border totaled 665 in March 2025, down from 8,829 in March 2024, according to figures cited by advocacy groups. While fewer children arrived this spring compared with last year, those who did arrive were more likely to find themselves in prolonged custody or facing rapid removal, lawyers said, in part because of the rollback of SIJS-related protections and new directives that enable removal even where family sponsors exist.

Public health researchers and community organizations report ripple effects beyond detention centers. A March 2025 KFF survey found that 32% of immigrants reported negative health effects stemming from worries about immigration status. Clinicians who work with immigrant families describe spikes in anxiety, depression, and PTSD among children and caregivers separated by detention or made fearful by home and workplace raids. Economists tracking labor force participation estimate that more than 1 million immigrants have left the workforce since January 2025, a development employers in sectors from agriculture to hospitality say has tightened hiring and increased turnover as families withdraw from public life.

Inside detention, conditions for children continue to be a flashpoint. Judge Gee’s findings detailed accounts of cold rooms, constant lighting, and limited access to hygiene and medical care, issues that child welfare experts say can have lasting effects on development. Attorneys and caseworkers argue that the quick expansion of custodial space following the year’s funding bill has outpaced oversight, especially in for-profit facilities where profit margins depend on keeping beds filled. The result, they say, is a system that is “cruel, barren, and psychologically scarring” for children, as Kahn put it, and one that stands at odds with decades of standards established to keep minors out of jail-like settings.

The administration and its allies in Congress defend the 2025 funding increases and detention expansions as necessary to enforce immigration law during a period of high crossings and strained local resources. But challenges in federal court continue to narrow what the government can do with children in custody, especially under Flores. Welch emphasized that

“Without court oversight, children in immigration custody would be left entirely at the mercy of a government that has consistently betrayed them,”

arguing that continued monitoring is essential as long as detention remains central to federal strategy. Attorneys for children say they have won a series of temporary restraining orders and injunctions this year that forced DHS to reverse or pause removals, but many cases still hinge on individual judges and the speed of filings, leaving families in limbo.

Advocacy groups point to the August episode involving Guatemalan children as a warning of what could come if courts step back. The judge’s remark —

“I have the government attempting to remove minor children from the country in the wee hours of the morning on a holiday weekend, which is surprising, but here we are”

— has circulated widely among lawyers as a shorthand for emergency, last-minute efforts to halt flights and retrieve children already moved to airports. At least 10 children had their deportations blocked, with more potentially affected, according to legal filings. The National Immigrant Justice Center’s account that children were “pulled from their beds” and loaded onto buses in the dark has further fueled criticism of overnight operations and raised questions about notice to attorneys and sponsors.

For teenagers with SIJS, the rollback of deferred action and work permits in June has been especially consequential. Baltimore said the shift removes a layer of protection that previously kept young people out of ICE custody while they waited for green cards based on state court findings. The change, she added, has made routine check-ins riskier and chilled participation in programs that rely on youths staying engaged with immigration authorities.

“I’ve never seen young people targeted in this way,”

she said. Legal aid groups say they are triaging similar cases in New York and other states, trying to keep young clients out of detention and to ensure they are not moved far from lawyers or potential sponsors.

As the legal fights continue, the administration is scaling up family detention, reopening closed sites and commissioning new ones. Pediatric specialists warn that holding children and parents together for weeks or months can impair development and strain family bonds, even in facilities that meet basic standards. Attorneys say access to counsel remains inconsistent in remote locations and that families often lose track of hearing dates and filing deadlines without robust legal orientation — gaps that widened during the period between March 21, 2025 and April 1, 2025, when legal services funding for unaccompanied children was halted and then restored by court order.

With the Flores Settlement Agreement still in effect as of October 30, 2025, the courts remain the central check on how far the government can go in detaining and deporting children.

“This order will help to shorten the imprisonment of children and move them promptly out of the worst and most traumatizing facilities,”

Kahn said after Judge Gee’s ruling on CBP conditions. Whether those guardrails hold against new waves of policy changes and budget expansions may shape the next phase of immigration policy under President Trump, as agencies test the boundaries of detention authority and advocates marshal litigation to keep children out of jail-like settings.

For now, the numbers, the cases of Camas and Guerra Leon, and the aborted flight of hundreds of Guatemalan children point to a year in which elevated 2025 funding and aggressive enforcement have made detention a defining feature of the system once again. As Welch put it,

“The district court’s ruling underscores the critical role of the Flores Settlement Agreement in protecting the safety and welfare of children in government custody… Without court oversight, children in immigration custody would be left entirely at the mercy of a government that has consistently betrayed them.”