Immigrant advocates fear Trump's policy shifts will hurt one group most: Children

AUSTIN – Jennifer Walker Gates has had trouble sleeping lately.

Keeping her up at night are thoughts of how the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump will treat immigrants in the U.S., specifically children.

Walker Gates, an Austin-based immigration attorney who specializes in helping migrant children apply for asylum, said she fears that between Trump’s tougher immigration policies and his party’s control of both chambers of Congress, protection for children – both migrant and U.S. citizens – could be severely rolled back.

“This is a group of individuals who are incredibly vulnerable and have no power politically,” Walker Gates said of children. “We’re concerned.”

As Trump continues to name people to his cabinet and strategizes how to fulfill his many tough-on-immigration promises, including mass deportations, immigrant advocates and attorneys worry that one group will receive an outsize share of the punitive initiatives: children.

Whether a return to family separations at the border or breaking up or deporting mixed-status families in U.S. cities, advocates said the incoming Trump administration could unleash a slew of challenges to children in the U.S.

Family separations 

One of the most controversial practices during Trump’s first term was separating families at the border under the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy. The separations, designed to deter illegal border crossings, sparked a national backlash, as video images of toddlers crying for their parents in holding facilities circulated through the media. The American Civil Liberties Union filed several lawsuits against the government to stop it and Trump later rescinded the practice.

A settlement arising from a key lawsuit, Ms. L v. ICE, prohibits the government from reinstating family separation policies through at least 2031, said Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney who led the organization's legal challenge against family separation and other policies.

But the Trump administration will also be responsible for upholding other terms of the settlement, Gelernt said, including allowing parents separated from their children at the border to apply for asylum in the U.S. and facilitating the reunification of an estimated 1,000 still-separated families.

More than 5,500 families were believed to have been separated at the border under Trump’s first term, he said,  with approximately 4,000 of them currently eligible for the benefits of the settlement.

“We think the settlement is precise and iron-clad,” Gelernt said. “We’re going to be vigilant about making sure the settlement is complied with and will be back in court if there’s any evidence that the letter and spirit of the settlement are not adhered to.”

How the Trump administration complies with the terms of the settlement remains a question. A Trump spokeswoman and the Trump transition team did not reply to several requests for comment.

Tom Homan, an ardent supporter of “zero tolerance” under Trump’s first administration who was recently named by Trump to be the new “border czar,” has said in media interviews that a top priority for him would be to save children smuggled into the U.S. by cartels and trafficking rings.

“We want to save these children and get them back with their families,” he said on Fox News recently.

Homan has also said he continues to support family separations. Asked by a CBS News reporter if the policy should be relaunched in a second Trump term, Homan answered, “It needs to be considered, absolutely.”

Homan didn’t reply to several email requests for comment.

Mass deportations 

Immigrant advocates also worry that mass deportations promised by Trump on the campaign trail would lead to families being separated, as one or both parents are deported, while children, some of them U.S. citizens, stay behind.

How Trump and his advisers plan to prioritize who to deport out of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. remains an unanswered question.

“It is … important to remember that family separation comes in many different forms,” said Neha Desai, a children’s rights attorney and senior director at the National Center for Youth Law, an Oakland-based advocacy group. “The administration’s plan for mass deportation will result in an untold number of devastating family separations.”

Splitting up families who are deported would leave psychological trauma that could be passed down from one generation to the next, said Charles Nelson, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, who has studied the impact of family separations on children.

“The worry here is short-term harm then long-term harm, and long-term harm could play out in next generations,” he said.

Homan, Trump’s choice for border czar, has said he prefers to target those in the U.S. with criminal records first and has signaled that, rather than separating families, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents could deport the entire family.

Unlike during their first term, Trump officials this time would be better skilled at carrying out their intended tasks, said Sameera Hafiz, policy director at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.

“This time around, they have that knowledge and experience,” she said. “They’re going to make more intentional decisions.”

Rolling back protections 

For years, unaccompanied minors arriving at the border were protected under provisions enshrined into U.S. law, such as the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), which ensures the transfer of unaccompanied minors to the Department of Health and Human Services, and Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, a way for qualifying immigrant youth to get legal status in the U.S.

But the TVPRA has come under recent scrutiny by some U.S. lawmakers, who claim mismanagement and unintended loopholes allow traffickers to take advantage of unaccompanied minors through the act, putting them in harm’s way.

Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress could try to repeal the law altogether, stripping away important protections for young migrants, said Gladis Molina, executive director of the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights.

“Kids will be detained in the custody of U.S. Border Patrol, then exponentially removed and put on charter flights,” she said. “They’ll have no opportunity to go in front of asylum officers. They’d be treated as grownups.”

Similarly, Trump’s White House could tighten scrutiny to the Special Immigrant Juvenile Status or ask Congress to repeal or drastically alter the protection, making it harder for unaccompanied minors to apply for asylum, said Walker Gates, the Austin attorney.

“I could see the new administration removing that provision so that fewer children, if any, can access it,” she said.

DACA 

In their first term, Trump officials tried to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an Obama-era policy that shields immigrants without legal status brought to the U.S. as children from deportation and allows them to work legally in the U.S., among other benefits.

Several lawsuits were filed to keep DACA in place, sparking a legal odyssey involving competing lawsuits and an initial ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the policy. The case challenging DACA’s legality is currently under review by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

An emboldened Trump administration, backed by a friendly Supreme Court, may continue its push to abolish DACA, ending the ability to work and protection from deportation for an estimated 500,000 recipients, advocates said.

Lindsey Harris, a Houston attorney whose firm helps DACA applicants, said her office has been inundated with phone calls since the Nov. 5 election from people worried about DACA disappearing and mass deportations of immigrants. She tells them to avoid encounters with law enforcement and keep their records clean, so as not to later be targeted by immigration agents.

Even with that, she expects life to get tougher for immigrant youth.

“I have every expectation that things are going to get more serious under Trump,” Harris said.

Follow Jervis on X: @MrRJervis.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Migrant children could suffer most under Trump's plans, advocates say