On Trump

As the Trump administration’s violent immigration crackdown continues, people across the country are facing more than just the Department of Homeland Security’s massive detention and deportation efforts: They are also experiencing high levels of stress and trauma as a result of such efforts.

Like most traumatic events (such as occupation and state-sanctioned violence), the harm has fallen disproportionately on children.

“Children experience the policies and environment we create for them through the lens of safety, essential for their development,” said Dr. Lisa Fortuna, a clinical psychologist who specializes in the mental health of immigrants and refugees.

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“When children feel that their parents, their homes, their schools or their communities are not safe, their brains and bodies respond with fear,” he continued. “And when that fear becomes chronic, it can shape emotional development, learning, and health for many years. Potentially, a lifetime.”

Fortuna was one of several experts and community members who spoke before a group of senators Tuesday about the impact President Donald Trump’s federal immigration enforcement has had on children in the United States. From babies to 17-year-olds, young people experience symptoms of severe stress as a result of being detained or seeing their friends and family taken away.

The Department of Homeland Security, which includes Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, did not respond to News themezone’s request for comment.

Anguish over detention

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Federal immigration agents arrested more than 3,800 children between January and October 2025, according to the Immigrant Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School. Of those children, 1,700 have been held in family detention centers like the widely criticized one in Dilley, Texas.

“Dilley is hell. It’s a prison for babies, toddlers and children,” the clinic’s director, Elora Mukherjee, told lawmakers Tuesday. Mukherjee has represented 68 children and parents detained in Dilley, where he said families found live worms and insects in their food and lacked sufficient drinking water.

According to the attorney, more than 900 children have been detained beyond the legal limit of 20 days that a child accompanied by his or her parents can be in federal immigration custody. His 18-month-old client, Amalia Arrieta-Valero, nearly died from respiratory distress during her 57-day detention period. DHS has denied his family’s claim that the facility failed to provide necessary medical treatment upon returning to Dilley from the hospital.

Mukherjee also represented a 9-year-old boy with severe autism who was detained for 85 days after officers took him and his mother on the way to pick up his medication. With the lights always on and patrolling guards making noise, the boy became increasingly disoriented and began hitting himself and begging to be allowed to return to his home in Louisiana, he said.

“They thought that on Thanksgiving Day, because of this holiday, they could also enjoy a feast. And the staff covered each tray of food and told the children that the food was only for the employees.”

– Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School

Detention does more than just cause stress for children. Mukherjee recalled that his client Alexander, 5, the twin son of Russian political dissidents, became suicidal after being detained for more than 120 days and repeatedly falling ill.

“One night, his mother heard a strange sound coming from Alexander’s bed,” he said. “She went to check on him and discovered that he had managed to remove the drawstring from his sweatpants, put it around his neck and was pulling it tightly, believing at the age of 5 that it would be better to die than to remain in detention.”

Mukherjee managed to remove the aforementioned families from detention earlier this year after filing habeas petitions and parole applications, but highlighted that detained families continue to face unnecessarily cruel treatment. He recalled being told that children got excited when they were presented with a table full of food on Thanksgiving Day.

“They thought that on Thanksgiving Day, because of this holiday, they could also enjoy a feast,” he said. “And the staff covered each tray of food and told the children that the food was only for the employees. And the children were crying.”

Watching communities fall into chaos

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The trauma caused by the federal immigration crackdown doesn’t just happen to children detained in overcrowded family facilities. Children in cities that suffered major ICE operations, such as Chicago and Minneapolis, are dealing with the stress of watching their loved ones be violently abducted while fearing for their own safety.

Samia Mahmoud and Lia Lopez, high school seniors from Minneapolis and Chicago, respectively, told senators Tuesday that they had both started carrying their passports when they went out.

“For months, people in our community were afraid to speak and leave their homes. School hallways were left empty because children did not want to risk the safety of their own families,” said Lia, who on October 28 helped organize a massive student strike against ICE in the Hispanic neighborhoods that make up Chicago’s southwest side.

Other schools in Chicago also faced a drop in attendance due to fears surrounding DHS’s Operation Midway Blitz. Even though schools and community members carried whistles, created group chats and informed residents of their rights, first-grade teacher Maria Heavener said immigration agents still put her students’ lives at risk by firing tear gas from their car near Funston Elementary School.

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“First we heard helicopters, then horns, whistles and sirens,” Heavener recalled Tuesday of the Oct. 3 raid. “Students were brought back from recess, which narrowly saved them from inhaling the chemicals. The windows were closed and we were on a soft lockdown.”

Neighbors quickly gathered to create a safe passage for students to return home, but Heavener said students and their families still “felt shocked and violated.” She recalled her 6-year-old students asking what a tear gas canister did, while school counselors have since noticed an increase in behavioral health referrals.

“One of my students had a panic attack in class. His little body froze. His eyes filled with tears and he started shaking,” the teacher said. “He was worried that their relatives would be taken away because they have dark skin, even though they are citizens of Puerto Rico.”

Children are not protected by citizenship

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Since the administration’s immigration operations began, Americans have widely reported agents attacking, detaining and attempting to deport American citizens. This pattern has made children more hypervigilant and fearful, regardless of their citizenship status.

“The fear is spreading beyond immigrant families and reaching entirely American citizen families,” Fortuna said. “Children who are citizens and whose parents are citizens express fear that they or their loved ones will be taken away simply because they are perceived as immigrants because of the color of their skin, and because they belong to communities that have become the focus of law enforcement.”

The fear is then exacerbated by government officials who publicly dehumanize immigrants and non-white communities, behavior that can fuel hatred and xenophobia on the ground. Research has shown that children who experience racism like this will likely have difficulty developing their own identity and sense of self, which can lead to major problems such as psychiatric disorders and suicidal tendencies, Fortuna said.

“My own friend had to watch her cousin and uncle be thrown to the ground by ICE agents, with a knee pressed into their neck. cousin while he was yelling that he was a citizen,” said Lia, who is also a citizen.

“I should get ready for prom, worry about where I want to go to college, and study for finals,” she continued. “Instead, I worry about whether the color of my skin or the language my parents speak will determine whether I belong in this country.”

Protecting children

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Senators who heard Tuesday’s testimony acknowledged the trauma affecting children exposed to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. n before asking if there is any way to stop the damage.

When asked if there are any safeguards that lawmakers can put in detention centers to help protect children, Mukherjee emphasized that detention itself should never be an option for children.

“Alternatives to detention programs are much more cost-effective and humane than detaining children,” he said. “Protecting children from unnecessary cruelty is not a huge task, it is what our humanity demands of us.”

The White House has been repeatedly violating the 1997 Flores Agreement, a binding agreement with the federal government aimed at protecting children during immigration law enforcement. The administration attempted to scrap the deal before a federal court temporarily halted the effort.

Young people like Lia and Samia plan to continue organizing against federal immigration laws beyond high school, while Heavener said teachers have taken on more protective roles. He read aloud a letter addressed to senators, written by a sixth-grade student at his school.

“Babies and children are too young to go through this. Children need freedom. I feel devastated that my community is falling apart,” the student wrote. “In my opinion, I think they should give us our freedom. People came here to have a better life, and this is the life they had. It’s very unfair.”