Human Impact Project

Angel, a 13-year-old unaccompanied migrant boy from Honduras, appeared without an attorney at a deportation hearing in immigration court in Harlingen, Texas. He told the judge that his mother and most of his family live in the United States and that returning to Honduras would be dangerous, but the judge ruled he did not qualify for asylum. Crying, Angel said he had "no one" and "nothing," and the judge gave him until the end of the month to appeal his deportation order. Dozens of other migrant children, some as young as 2, appeared in the same court without legal representation. Advocates say his case reflects a broader pattern of unaccompanied children nationwide facing an accelerated, confusing immigration process after the Trump administration ended funding for legal service programs for migrant children.

A teenage asylum seeker identified in court records as E.L.A., now 19, was deported to El Salvador for a second time, prompting a federal judge to hold the Department of Homeland Security in contempt on September 25 for violating three separate court orders in the class-action case J.O.P. v. DHS. He had first been removed in March 2026 after missing biometrics appointments in April and October 2025, then returned to the U.S. in June after class counsel arranged for his asylum case to proceed. A July 29 court order found the government had breached the settlement, but he was deported again in September, less than three weeks after DHS issued internal guidance meant to prevent such removals.

A 1-year-old unaccompanied migrant child appeared in an Arizona immigration court and was ordered to file a 12-page asylum application before the next hearing or face deportation. Court filings allege that an attorney from USCRI, a new government contractor, was present but never spoke up on the child's behalf, calling it part of a broader "façade of compliance." This follows the July 31 end of a federal contract with the Acacia Center for Justice, which had funded legal representation for over 24,000 unaccompanied migrant children; payments to those nonprofits reportedly stopped in November after they declined to share confidential client information with the government. Some legal aid groups, including the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, say they are continuing to represent children without pay despite a court order requiring continued legal services.

The United States has deported hundreds of unaccompanied Mexican children on flights to southern Mexico cities including Tapachula, Villahermosa, and Mérida, where human rights organizations confirm more than 350 cases. Many children lack resources to return home safely and have become stranded in unfamiliar cities with inadequate local support services. Some children have disappeared from shelters, and human rights advocates have received information suggesting possible deaths of at least three children attempting to return to their home communities. The policy, discovered in December 2024, represents a shift from prior practice of rapid deportations at the land border where children received care through Mexico's child welfare system.

A Maryland federal judge held ICE in civil contempt for wrongfully deporting more than 50 unaccompanied minors in violation of a blanket court order barring their removal. The judge found that subsequent efforts to bring some of the minors back did not remedy the initial violation.

An 11-year-old unaccompanied migrant named Diego appeared alone before an immigration judge in New York City without legal representation, struggling to complete an asylum application in English. The hearing occurred after a federal contract funding legal services for detained immigrant children expired on July 31, leaving thousands of minors to represent themselves. Judge Lisa Ling, a former ICE prosecutor, gave Diego two and a half weeks to file his asylum application or face deportation, despite his expressed fear of returning to Guatemala. Multiple other unaccompanied children, some as young as 11, appeared in court that day without lawyers or adult advocates.

Jewish Family and Community Services of Pittsburgh (JFCS) filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration alleging policies push unaccompanied immigrant children toward deportation even when they qualify for legal status. The suit names six teen plaintiffs from Vietnam, Guinea, El Salvador and Guatemala, all described as victims of abuse, abandonment, neglect or trafficking. Among them is KTN, a 19-year-old from Vietnam who fled severe, repeated physical abuse by his father and was approved for Special Immigrant Juvenile status in May, yet was ordered deported in July. Another plaintiff, 17-year-old Guatemalan trafficking survivor FYCT, was ordered deported despite applying for T nonimmigrant status after being confirmed as a trafficking victim. The lawsuit alleges immigration judges have been instructed to deny children meaningful time to pursue pending applications, citing government data showing removal and voluntary departure orders against minors have nearly quadrupled. JFCS staff say hundreds of their young clients are at risk, and the filing coincided with two Pittsburgh-area members of Congress questioning the administration's decision to end a contract funding attorneys for roughly 20,000 unaccompanied children nationwide, including about 700 in Pennsylvania.

Camila, a 5-year-old girl from Atlixco, Mexico, crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in summer 2025 and was detained in federal immigration custody for 118 days, separated from her mother who lived only a few miles away in New Haven, Connecticut. Unable to be taken by her parents due to their immigration status, the government classified her as "unaccompanied." During detention, Camila was held first in a CBP detention center, then in a Connecticut shelter where she was the youngest child present, and finally in an office building converted for federal use. She saw her mother, who has a pending legal residency application, for only one hour per week. A child psychiatrist's evaluation documented that Camila experienced nightmares, anxiety about family separation, and fear expressed through play. Her mother applied for custody but waited more than 90 days without receiving a decision, as the federal government repeatedly added requirements before deeming her application complete. Camila was released three days after her attorneys filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of her detention. She is now home with her mother and newborn brother, though she continues to experience separation anxiety and sleeps with her mother at night. During the same period, more than two dozen unaccompanied immigrant children were in federal custody in Connecticut on any given day, with some held for as long as 505 days.

Liam, 15, was arrested by local police in May 2025 following a fight; ICE agents separated him from his father who arrived to pick him up and took both into custody. Liam was held in an ICE office in Burlington, Massachusetts, then transferred to an ORR shelter in Texas for three months before being moved to Groton, Connecticut. Whether ICE ever properly contacted his mother to inform her she could pick him up remains disputed; she said ICE called her while he was in Burlington but did not tell her she could retrieve him, and she did not hear from him again until he was in Texas. The government made contradictory statements about the mother's availability, at one point claiming ICE couldn't locate her, then claiming ICE asked her to pick him up but she refused, while also stating she was at the police station during his arrest. Liam grew anxious and depressed in the shelters; a psychological evaluation recommended his release "as soon as possible" for his well-being. Federal Judge Vernon Oliver called the government's claims "disturbing" and "full of significant incongruities," and ordered Liam's release 27 days after the lawsuit was filed; his mother picked him up the following day after 255 days of detention.

Jean, a 12-year-old from Haiti, was detained at the U.S. border and held in federal custody for 505 days, spending his 13th birthday in an ORR shelter in California and later a foster care program in New Haven, Connecticut. His family in Fort Lauderdale—his father, stepmother, and two sisters—had completed all required vetting, background checks, and home studies, yet the Office of Refugee Resettlement repeatedly requested documents his family could not obtain, including a Haitian death certificate from territory controlled by gangs. After his sisters were released to their stepmother, Jean remained detained; ORR cited a DNA test showing his father was not his biological parent, though his father said this changed nothing. A federal judge ultimately ruled the government's process "arbitrary and capricious" and ordered Jean's release, with the judge noting that unlawful detention "results in an injury that really can never be remedied." In August 2026, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal cited Jean's case, along with a 5-year-old Connecticut girl held 118 days, in a letter demanding that the HHS inspector general investigate ORR's prolonged detention of immigrant children, accusing the agency of an "obstructionist policy" toward families seeking reunification.

Pavel Snegir, a Russian asylum seeker, was detained at Otay Mesa ICE facility after refusing to self-deport at San Diego airport in May 2025. ICE separated him from his 11-year-old son Aleksandr during the incident, threatening deportation and stating he may never see his son again if he did not comply. Both Pavel and Aleksandr passed initial asylum screening. After 11 months in ICE custody, Pavel was released following asylum approval. However, Aleksandr remained in Office of Refugee Resettlement custody at a youth shelter over one year after separation. Pavel's sponsorship request to reunify with his son was denied due to lack of stable housing and employment documentation, citing Trump administration policies that create barriers to family reunification.

An 8-year-old U.S. citizen was detained in a federally contracted shelter in Brooklyn for nearly seven months after being dropped off by relatives at the Mexico-U.S. border last November. He was sometimes held with no other children present, showed signs of depression, and turned nine while in federal custody. Despite his grandmother providing officials with his birth certificate establishing his U.S. citizenship through his mother, the Office of Refugee Resettlement did not investigate his status; the agency has said in court filings that no one informed them he was a citizen until late May. He was released only after an immigration judge ruled him a U.S. citizen and a federal lawsuit was filed, with custody transferred to New York City's child welfare agency before he was placed with his grandmother in Brooklyn within hours.

A three-year-old girl was separated from her mother at the U.S.-Mexico border on September 16, 2025, and placed in federal immigration custody under the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). She was held in an ORR-funded foster home in Harlingen, Texas, where she was sexually abused by an older child in the home in November 2025. Her father, a legal permanent resident living in Chicago, filed a federal habeas corpus petition in February 2026 after ORR delayed reunification for five months despite his sponsor application being approved. ORR officials did not initially disclose the sexual abuse to the father. The girl was forensically examined and the allegations were reported to law enforcement. She was released to her father two days after the petition was filed.

J.R.C., an 11-year-old from Venezuela who had lived in El Paso for nearly four years, was detained alongside his father Jesus Eduardo Reyes Hermes on April 28, 2026, when ICE agents arrested them outside their South-Central El Paso home. The boy was separated from his father and placed in shelter custody under the Office of Refugee Resettlement, while his father was transferred to Camp East Montana detention facility. J.R.C. was attending school in El Paso, where he had learned some English and was developing academically, with a teacher he credited with helping him learn to read. After his father was released on bond in June and the boy's asylum case was denied, J.R.C. requested voluntary departure on July 7, 2026, to reunite with his mother and siblings in Venezuela and Colombia. He expressed both sadness at leaving his friends and school, and excitement about seeing his family.

A federal judge in Los Angeles ordered the Department of Homeland Security to stop using coercive language to pressure unaccompanied immigrant children to self-deport, ruling the practice violated a 40-year-old court mandate. Beginning in September 2025, DHS had advised detained minors they would face prolonged detention if they did not leave the U.S. and threatened to prosecute their sponsors. The judge rejected the government's request to end the longstanding safeguards protecting children's due process rights, citing language that "disturbingly mirrors" coercion documented in a 1985 case that established these protections.

Y.R., a 37-year-old undocumented Honduran immigrant who came to the U.S. in early 2022, was arrested by ICE in April 2026 while trying to gain custody of her niece and nephew, who had spent nearly 400 days in a federal shelter after crossing the Texas-Mexico border in spring 2025. She had spent nearly a year completing government vetting, including background checks and DNA tests, to become their sponsor, before ICE agents arrested her in a parking lot near her home with help from the Office of Refugee Resettlement after the Trump administration dropped rules barring the office from sharing sponsor information with ICE. After two weeks in a North Texas detention center, an immigration judge released her on bond, and she reunited with her now 11-year-old niece and 14-year-old nephew in May, though she remains in deportation proceedings. "I never thought about giving up on trying to get them. Even when I got arrested, I immediately thought about my niece and nephew," she said, adding she told her lawyer she would not leave the U.S. without the children. The Trump administration has implemented narrowed identity-document rules and mandatory DNA testing for sponsors seeking custody of children in federal shelters.

A 15-year-old was detained during an ICE raid at a clandestine club off San Pedro Avenue in San Antonio in November 2025, along with approximately 140 other people. Four months later, the teen remained in federal custody at a migrant children's shelter on San Antonio's South Side despite paperwork for his release being completed. The release process stalled after his father, who was handling the case, was detained while driving back from a job in Corpus Christi, creating additional complications as the family feared further detention if a parent came forward to secure his release.

A 14-year-old Brazilian national was detained by ICE agents in Marlborough, Massachusetts on March 10, 2026, during an operation targeting suspected gang members. She was transferred to a juvenile detention facility in New York without following proper legal procedures. A federal judge ordered her immediate release on March 12, 2026, finding the detention and out-of-state transfer violated constitutional protections and questioning why she was not turned over to state child welfare authorities instead. She was reunited with her aunt and uncle in Massachusetts but received a notice to appear in immigration court and now faces deportation to Brazil. Her attorney plans to challenge the deportation and petition for special immigrant juvenile status.

Maykel and his five cousins were detained in shelter facilities for four months after trekking hundreds of miles to reunite with their mother Maria. Under Trump administration rules, the children remained in detention despite their parent being available to care for them. Families across New York and the country are using habeas corpus petitions as a legal tool to challenge prolonged detentions of unaccompanied minors.

Nearly 50 Democratic members of Congress are demanding answers from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services over allegations that the federal government is placing all pregnant unaccompanied migrant girls at a single San Benito, Texas shelter operated by Urban Strategies, where they lack adequate reproductive health care. The placement contradicts agency guidance requiring pregnant minors be placed in states where they can access full reproductive healthcare options, and has drawn objections from health and child welfare officials citing inadequate specialized care for high-risk pregnancies.