Young prisoners: Under Trump, ICE detained more than 500 children under three, including infants

On average, 25 children under the age of three are held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers every day, according to an investigation conducted by MS NOW — a public organization dedicated to gender equality issues and independent media outlet The Marshall Project.

Since the Trump administration returned to the White House, at least 500 young children under three have spent part of their time in ICE detention centers. From January 2025 to March 2026, 25 such children were held in the centers daily—ten times the number during the previous 12 months under Biden, when the average number of children of this age per day nationwide was two to three.

Parents complained about the difficult conditions, which meant their children were often sick, cut off from their normal lives, and lost the skills they had already acquired.

ICE did not respond to a request for comment regarding the increase in young children in detention. However, in a written statement, an agency spokesperson said that families with children are provided with food, water, and medical care. CoreCivic, a private company that operates ICE's main family detention center, assured that its facilities are safe for young children.

On the subject: Trump administration shuts down immigration detention center oversight office

Marsha Griffin, a professor of pediatrics and co-founder of the American Academy of Pediatrics's committee on incarceration, called infancy and early childhood "probably the most dangerous period to be incarcerated." "Our immigration system is breaking children," she noted.

The baby stopped eating due to stress.

In March, Joanie, her husband, and their two-year-old son, Kaleth, attended their regular meeting with immigration officials in California. The family had never missed such meetings since applying for asylum in 2024. Nevertheless, that day, all three were taken into custody.

Kaleta's father was taken in handcuffs to an adult detention center, while Joanie and the baby were sent to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, ICE's main facility for holding families with children.

Separated from his father, Kalet was deeply distressed. He constantly dragged the small table to the telephone on the wall, trying to reach it. Joanie, afraid her son would fall, pushed the table away each time. Even if he had managed to pick up the phone, it would have been impossible to contact his father at the other center.

The boy refused to eat for almost two weeks. The center's doctors attributed this to depression. When his mother tried to feed him, Kaleta vomited, and then he stopped having bowel movements. Joanie watched her son's face become haggard and his eyes sunken.

Laurie Goodman, director of LEAP, a nonprofit that works with such families in California, explains that children this age often experience trauma through their bodies because they don't yet have much speech.

"He was so distressed that it affected his physical condition: he couldn't eat or digest food," Goodman said. "The longer a child is in that environment, the more serious the long-term consequences."

From Trump's second inauguration until March 2026, ICE held at least 175 infants and toddlers beyond the court-ordered 20-day limit. This limit was set by a federal judge in 2015 as part of the Flores v. Reno settlement. In the final year of the Biden administration, no child under three was held longer than 20 days. Biden ended the practice of detaining families in 2021, and the Dilley center was closed. Trump reinstated the practice and reopened Dilley shortly after taking office.

In court documents filed by ICE in May, the agency said it was "working to evaluate cases and release minors as quickly as possible."

Some children played with stones because they had no toys.

Alsu and Azat, fearing that their civic position on the war in Ukraine would land them in prison and their one-year-old son Amir in an orphanage, left Russia last year.

They expected to spend only a few weeks in immigration detention after surrendering to authorities at the border. However, the family's stay dragged on, first in California and then at the Dilley Center. The parents watched as their previously lively and active son gradually withdrew and began hitting himself in the face.

"We came here to avoid prison. We wanted to be free, but instead we spent four months in jail," Azat explained.

There were almost no toys for the little ones in Dilley. Some desperate children played with stones. Although his parents knew how important it was to read with Amir, they couldn't find any books in Russian. The boy's speech didn't develop. Eventually, he stopped saying anything except "mama" and "papa."

Professor Griffin emphasizes that for children to develop speech, it's crucial to constantly hear live speech. But fear and stress in confinement keep both parents and children silent.

"They don't want to talk, and no one talks to them normally either," she noted. "This can even disrupt the bond between parent and child, because the child sees the parent losing control of the situation."

Psychologist Rachel Briggs of Zero to Three says such developmental delays create a domino effect: "If we miss this crucial time of early childhood, when the brain is developing so rapidly, it will be much more difficult to catch up later. A child can't focus on the alphabet because their first thought is safety in a frightening environment."

Amir's feeding also presented problems. The center's staff forced Alsa to wean her son off formula, arguing that he was already too big. Solid food wasn't suitable for a one-year-old. His mother described sucking the hot sauce off noodles to feed her son. The parents hid cereal from the cafeteria in their socks and hoodies to keep their little one from going to bed hungry.

“Every day I cried hysterically because my child was left without normal food,” recalls Alsou.

After the parents tried to demand better feeding of the child, CoreCivic employees woke Azat up in the middle of the night and threatened to separate him, specifically sending Amir to a foster family, if the complaints did not stop.

“As a husband and father, I saw the suffering of my child and wife, but I could do nothing to help them,” Azat admitted.

Danger to health

The parents of both Kalet and Amira reported that their children at Dilley often suffered from fevers and stomach problems, and that accessing adequate treatment was difficult. Many families complained of long waiting lists even for common over-the-counter medications.

Elora Mukherjee, a Columbia Law School professor who has represented more than 80 children and parents from Dilley over the past year, says nearly all of her clients have complained of substandard medical care.

"Children this age are more susceptible to infections because their immune systems haven't yet developed," she explained. "Keeping these little ones in prison conditions with hundreds of other people means condemning them to constant illnesses: fever, cough, vomiting, diarrhea."

When one-year-old Amalia developed a fever and became lethargic, her parents repeatedly went to Dilley Medical Center. They were given only Tylenol and told not to complain. After the girl lost consciousness, her mother asked the staff, "How much longer are you going to leave her like this? Are you going to let her die?"

Amalia ended up spending over a week in a regular hospital. She was diagnosed with COVID-19, an ear infection, pneumonia, bronchitis, and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus infection), which can be severe in young children.

ICE standards require that patients be transferred to an off-site hospital if adequate care cannot be provided on-site.

Children's Rights attorney Lykia Welch, who has visited Dilley more than a dozen times, called the cases involving the children some of the most horrific she has seen.

Mothers' milk disappeared due to stress

Mothers complained that stress and poor nutrition were causing their milk to dry up. Other parents testified in court that the center lacked bottled water for formula, and buying it from the prison commissary was too expensive. The tap water smelled foul and caused illness in the children.

Sleep was also difficult for the children: the lights in the rooms were on all night, and the usual soothing toys and blankets were prohibited in living areas.

ICE and Department of Homeland Security representatives did not respond to questions about the conditions in which Kalet, Amir, and Amalia were being held. Earlier, on social media, the agency denied Amalia's family's claims and assured that the girl "immediately received the necessary medical care."

CoreCivic spokesman Brian Todd said the center provides babies with everything they need, including formula, healthy food, and clean water.

In its statements, ICE noted that it was working to quickly move people to their final destination, their home countries. In court documents, the agency stated, among other things, that it was providing eye masks, reducing lighting at night, ensuring water quality monitoring, access to toys and books in different languages, and delivering bottled water for formula.

Lawyers for the detained children called these statements "fantasy."

Kaleta and Joanie were released in April, two weeks after their arrest. They were later reunited with their father. According to his lawyer, the boy had not eaten solid food during this time. Already in the car from the airport, he ate four packets of applesauce.

Now Kalet feels well.

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Amalia and her family were released in February after two months in Dilley.

Amir and his parents were released from custody in January. Now the two-year-old boy is doing better: he laughs more often, talks more, gets sick less often, and has stopped hitting himself. His parents say he's gradually becoming the happy child he was before his imprisonment.

However, it is unknown how time spent in prison will affect the child in the future.

Hundreds of babies have passed through ICE detention centers since Trump returned to power.

"We will see the long-term damage from prolonged toxic stress, and essentially the abuse, of these children for many years to come," warned Laurie Goodman.

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A Georgian man has died in ICE custody, marking the 50th death in immigration custody under Trump.

ICE jails are seeing a surge in suicides, with young undocumented immigrants with no criminal history taking their own lives.

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