In Colorado, ICE smashes the window of a automotive with a 1-month-old inside, his mom crying out, “There’s a baby in here!”
A household of 4 in Chicago is surrounded at Millennium Park by closely armed and masked immigration brokers, whereas the 8-year-old daughter clutches her doll and sobs. The mom holds her 3-year-old son whereas all of them are detained.
A 6-year-old, her 19-year-old brother and mom are stopped at a immigration check-in in New York and detained.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a 13-year-old not too long ago in Massachusetts and whisked him away to Virginia.
These incidents will not be exceptions, however a typical story. Within the New York Metropolis space, for instance, ICE has detained at least 50 youngsters.
Zip-tying youngsters
Although immigrant youth have been focused, U.S.-born Black youngsters haven’t been spared. About 300 federal brokers executed an immigration raid, leading to surprising and heartbreaking scenes in a South Aspect residence constructing in Chicago. Crying youngsters being led out of their residence because it was tossed. When neighborhood members in Chicago denounced the zip-tying of kids, who had been additionally separated from their relations, an ICE officer was overheard saying “f— those kids.”
Along with the preliminary violence of the stops, youngsters have been incarcerated in areas not made to carry them.
Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana is designated for grownup males however has had at the least 18 youngsters detained between January and July. In the meantime, even amenities designed to imprison households have main issues, together with delayed medical care for youngsters, excessive temperatures and undrinkable faucet water — and the federal government is charging youngsters and households cash for bottled water.
The administration can also be arguing in court docket to cut back the protections on detained youngsters, together with limits on how lengthy they are often held and necessities of offering sanitary circumstances for youngsters.
In parallel to the abuses throughout the immigration enforcement system, the federal government is making an attempt to fill youth incarceration amenities by encouraging “tough on crime” approaches, even when crime is the bottom it has been in a long time.
President Donald Trump not too long ago claimed in Washington that “caravans of mass youth rampage through city streets at all times of the day” — which isn’t true.
As a substitute of insurance policies that scale back crime, we get this rhetoric of locking up “bad children.” After a major drop within the final twenty years, youth incarceration charges are growing. Racial disparities in youth imprisonment are the widest they’ve been in a long time, despite the fact that crime is at historic lows. Youth conduct has not turn into extra violent, however grownup reactions to youth conduct have turn into extra punitive. Extra legal guidelines and insurance policies actively punish younger individuals for minimal infractions.
The administration can also be looking for to take away youth from their houses and put them into authorities custody. These “welfare checks” are at occasions being accomplished by FBI or Homeland Safety brokers as an alternative of these skilled in social welfare. And but as soon as youth are in authorities custody, they don’t seem to be protected.
Concentrating on communities of shade and immigrant communities, the Trump administration is utilizing each tactic it will probably dream as much as break aside households. One initiative dubbed “Freaky Friday” presents youngsters in custody as much as $2,500 to depart the U.S. Initially slated for younger individuals as younger as 14 years outdated, this fee would theoretically be made after “an immigration judge grants the request and the individual arrives in their country of origin.”
However it might be extraordinarily tough for younger individuals to obtain any such fee from the federal government after reaching their nation of origin. Worst, this program’s monetary stress on weak youngsters disregards the risks they confronted once they fled their houses within the first place.
Furthermore, the administration tried to deport numerous Guatemalan youngsters over Labor Day weekend, with at the least 76 youngsters being boarded onto planes, and presumably extra en route, earlier than a choose issued a restraining order.
Such actions have left immigrant youngsters languishing in authorities custody, whether or not in detention amenities, accommodations or group houses, for longer durations, as an alternative of being reunited with household.
Violent arrests, harmful detentions and extended incarceration present that the purposeful criminalizing of immigrants and Black of us isn’t solely dangerous to adults but in addition traumatizes youngsters.
Simply witnessing a mother or father’s arrest can have adverse psychological well being impacts on younger youngsters. When a youth is arrested, their life outcomes are negatively affected, together with a rise in possibilities of leaving college, greater charges of despair and suicidal ideas.
Creating scapegoats
Youth who’ve skilled incarceration are much less more likely to discover steady housing and employment as adults and six occasions extra more likely to expertise early loss of life in contrast with non-incarcerated youth. All of those adverse outcomes are additionally accompanied by excessive price. The common price of incarcerating a youth in a safe facility is about $214,620 per yr.
The punitive method doesn’t make sense as social coverage, nevertheless it serves a function for the Trump administration by turning weak populations into scapegoats.
U.S. Lawyer Jeanine Pirro not too long ago stated: “I see too much violent crime being committed by young punks who think they can get together in gangs and crews and beat the hell out of you.” Trump not too long ago stated of Baltimore youth: “They’re not going to be good in 10 years, in five years, in 20 years, in two years they’re going to be criminals. They were born to be criminals.”
Such phrases remind us that some officers see many Black and immigrant youth as criminals meant to be punished, not as youngsters meant to be protected. The rhetoric and insurance policies of the administration, together with cuts to evidence-based applications that really scale back violence, verify that this administration doesn’t care about the fee to the younger individuals violently arrested and incarcerated, nor about the fee to society. As a substitute of approaching all youngsters with care, the administration has waged conflict on immigrant and Black youth.
And it’s a conflict that advantages nobody.
Subini Annamma is an affiliate professor within the Graduate College of Training at Stanford College. David Stovall is a professor of Black research and criminology, regulation and justice. ©2025 Los Angeles Occasions. Distributed by Tribune Content material Company.
