President Trump has been accused of tearing families apart by deporting illegal alien parents while their citizen children remain in the United States.
Liberals are also unhappy when Trump reunites families by deporting illegal alien children to join their non-U.S.-citizen parents in their home countries.
Claims circulating online say unaccompanied minors must appear alone in immigration court without a lawyer and that the Trump administration cut federal funding for their legal representation.
The vast majority of children being deported in these cases are unaccompanied minors. Under 6 U.S.C. § 279(g)(2), an “unaccompanied alien child” is under 18, has no lawful immigration status in the United States, and has either no parent or legal guardian in the United States or none available to provide care and physical custody.
The same statute directs the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to reunite children with a parent abroad in appropriate cases, which means many of these children’s parents are in their home countries.
Liberals are fond of parroting the claim that being in the country illegally is a misdemeanor, “like a traffic ticket,” to minimize the violation and imply that there should be no enforcement. This is ironic because traffic tickets are enforced.
Illegal entry is a federal crime prosecuted in federal criminal court. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1325, a first offense is a misdemeanor carrying up to six months in prison, and a repeat offense is a felony carrying up to two years. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1326, reentering after deportation is a felony carrying up to two years, rising to 20 years for those removed after an aggravated felony conviction.
Another point they raise is that being in the country illegally is not a crime. On presence alone, they are correct: the Supreme Court held in Arizona v. United States that remaining in the country unlawfully is generally not a crime. But that also limits their cries for “due process.”
When they say due process, they are thinking of courtroom movies about murder trials. Aliens in deportation proceedings do have Fifth Amendment due process rights.
However, in INS v. Lopez-Mendoza (1984), the Supreme Court described deportation as a purely civil action to determine eligibility to remain in the United States, not to punish unlawful entry. Various criminal-trial protections therefore do not apply, including the right to government-appointed counsel.
Since 1952, 8 U.S.C. § 1362 has given people in removal proceedings the privilege of counsel at no expense to the government. Under EOIR’s practice manual, an immigration judge cannot appoint a lawyer or guardian ad litem for an unaccompanied juvenile, although EOIR encourages pro bono help.
In 2018, FactCheck.org quoted Kids in Need of Defense saying toddlers appearing in immigration court without attorneys was nothing new. It reported 170 new unaccompanied-child cases involving one-year-olds in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2016.
Federal funding for these children’s legal services began in 2005, when ORR contracted with Vera. In its first three years, the program provided 14,000 children in federal custody with legal orientations, screenings, pro bono representation and other services. Funding continued under Republican and Democratic administrations.
Congress’s 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act requires HHS to ensure, “to the greatest extent practicable,” that unaccompanied children have counsel and to make every effort to use pro bono attorneys under 8 U.S.C. § 1232(c)(5).
Congress funded these services through ORR’s contract with the Acacia Center for Justice, which served more than 20,000 children by July 31, 2026, according to a court filing. The Trump administration moved to terminate funding in March 2025 and allowed the contract to expire in July 2026 despite a court order requiring services to continue.
Families send children north for several reasons. In a 2014 study, UNHCR interviewed more than 400 children from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador in U.S. custody.
It found that 58% of those interviewed reported harms indicating a potential need for international protection, most commonly violence by organized criminal groups and caretaker abuse. Mexican children also cited recruitment by criminal groups to smuggle others across the border.
Claims that child abuse drives immigration make little sense, however. A small child cannot consciously decide to flee to the United States to escape abuse, and an abusive parent would not send the child to America for that purpose.
In many cases, the parent arranging the journey already lives in the United States. In fiscal year 2018, 41% of sponsors receiving children from ORR were parents. The Congressional Research Service identified economic opportunity and family reunification as factors drawing children to the United States.
U.S. law also shapes these decisions. Under the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, unaccompanied children from countries other than Mexico and Canada enter full removal proceedings rather than face prompt return home.
In 2018, DHS called this provision and the Flores settlement a pull factor encouraging parents to pay criminal organizations to smuggle their children into the United States.
In 2018, DHS stated that thousands of unaccompanied children, particularly young teenage girls, suffer sexual abuse by smugglers, criminals and even Latin American government officials during the journey to the United States.
Arrival does not guarantee safety. HHS releases children to sponsors, usually parents or relatives living in the United States.
Of more than 448,000 children released from fiscal years 2019 through 2023, more than 32,000 failed to appear in immigration court, and ICE could not account for all their whereabouts.
ICE later found sponsors who had paid smugglers, falsely claimed to be relatives, and subjected children to physical abuse and sexual and labor exploitation.
Returning children to their parents and discouraging parents from sending them to the United States alone is crucial to keeping them safe. With Christmas approaching, it is wonderful that many of these families will be reunited in Honduras and Guatemala for the holidays.
Ad block users: Some site features may not work correctly while an ad blocker is enabled, because they break scripts and content this website depends on. If you can’t see comments below, for example, please disable your ad blocker.
