Eroding Protections,Expanding Enforcement: Transformations in the Policies and Practices Governing the Treatment of Unaccompanied Children in the United States under the Second Trump Administration

Abstract

Executive Summary

Since 2021, over 468,000 unaccompanied children have been apprehended by US immigration agencies and transferred into the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. According to the most recent data from the Office of Homeland Security Statistics (2025), more than 370,000 unaccompanied children’s cases are still working their way through the complex US immigration legal system. Unaccompanied children have long been identified as a population particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation and in need of specialized care. This reality has shaped legal decisions and legislation since the early 2000s, setting forth policies that aim to preserve children’s legal rights and well-being. However, there have been significant shifts in the federal government’s approach to the care, oversight, and management of unaccompanied children since January 2025. This paper examines transformations in the policies and practices governing the treatment of unaccompanied children since this time and the emerging impacts of these shifts. To do this, we analyze observational data collected in web-based immigration hearings for unaccompanied children between April and August 2025, government policies and documents, the legal arguments presented in litigation related to unaccompanied children’s rights and treatment, and media reports. Our analysis is informed by our positionality as staff at a national nonprofit legal advocacy organization that administers programs serving unaccompanied children, providing us unique insight into the everyday impacts shifts in policy and practice have had on the treatment of children and their access to legal resources. Our analysis demonstrates the numerous ways in which the protections afforded unaccompanied children as they move through the immigration system are being eroded, despite claims that these moves are necessary to protect children from trafficking and other harms. Drawing on our findings, we propose the following policy recommendations:

Unnecessarily invasive and cumbersome sponsor vetting requirements should be removed and new programs and plans to address the mental, physical, and educational needs of children experiencing prolonged detention should be implemented. Sponsor vetting practices should focus squarely on whether a potential sponsor can safely care for the child and should be completely disassociated from immigration enforcement objectives.

Policymakers should advance legislation that guarantees and funds in-person legal services, including representation, from trained, independent providers to all unaccompanied children.

The Department of Justice should reinstate juvenile dockets across all immigration courts, ensuring that judges presiding over unaccompanied children’s cases are trained in child-friendly and developmentally appropriate ways of engaging children and provided with clear guidelines for how these principles should be put into practice. There should additionally be consistent oversight of proceedings to ensure that children are treated appropriately and consistently across immigration courts.

Policymakers should advocate for the full re-staffing of the Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and Unaccompanied Children Office of the Ombuds. Policymakers should be attentive to efforts to leave offices intact in name while staffing purges limit their ability to effectively protect the rights and well-being of children.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services should reinstate policy guidance that automatically confers deferred action to youth with special immigrant juvenile status who are unable to apply for adjustment of status solely due to unavailability of immigrant visas.