ICE Has Detained 6,200+ Kids in Trump’s Second Term, Up 10x Since Biden Left Office

Submission statement: Details concerning US Immigration policy and how taxpayer money is being used to cause mass suffering.

>In Trump’s annual budget request to Congress, released Friday, his administration requested funding for “up to 30,000 family unit beds.”

>In an emailed statement, an ICE spokesperson said, “being in detention is a choice,”

>“Families consistently report their children are hungry, exhausted, perpetually sick, and despondent from the conditions of confinement,”

>Parents reported finding worms and mold in food and foul-smelling water. In one court filing, a parent said, “babies are getting thin because they can only really eat pieces of bread.”

>In one instance, a baby received poor care before being sent to the hospital with dangerously low oxygen levels. Families have reported children in mental distress: a two-year-old who hit himself, potty-trained children who began wetting themselves, and a 13-year-old who was put into isolation after attempting suicide

>since Trump retook office, ICE has detained more than 1,600 children for longer than 20 days.

>A government filing asserts that, between November and February, no detainees had required “hospitalization or emergency room referral.” Even so, The Marshall Project obtained 911 calls from the Dilley facility indicating multiple transfers to the hospital. ICE did not respond to questions about those inconsistencies.

>Staff at a shelter in Laredo, Texas, told The Marshall Project that families were dropped there after their detention at Dilley, sometimes thousands of miles away from their homes, with little money for travel expenses. “They are tired. They are tired. They are tired,” the Rev. Mike Smith, who runs the shelter, said in February. “You’ll see tears later, once they become aware that it’s safe.”

>The federal government has been fighting in court to terminate the Flores settlement, which would mean the loss of key protections, like limits on how long children can be held in detention.