Trump’s New War on Children
Trump’s mass deportation agenda isn’t just policy—it’s fueling a climate of terror that is isolating, dehumanizing, and endangering millions of children
As Congress advances a GOP budget that will gut essential programs like Medicaid and SNAP—lifelines for countless children—Trump’s administration is escalating its war on the most vulnerable. This is not just policy; it is a deliberate climate of fear that is already claiming lives.
Earlier this month, 11-year-old Jocelynn Rojo Carranza died by suicide after relentless bullying over her family’s immigration status. Her classmates taunted her, saying immigration agents would take her parents away, that she would be left alone. This is the world Trump is building—one where children live in terror, where their mere existence is a target, and where cruelty is the point. Jocelynn’s story is a tragedy, but it is also a warning: this administration’s anti-immigrant crusade is not abstract—it is deadly.
Her death is part of a broader climate of fear that now grips children across the country. In schools from Los Angeles to Chicago to Washington, D.C., children are afraid to go to class, afraid to leave their homes, afraid that their parents won’t be there when they return. Educators are fielding desperate questions from students asking if ICE will come for them next. Parents are keeping their kids home, unsure whether they will be safe. This terror is not incidental—it is by design.
Now, as laid out in the Hub’s new memo, Trump is turning his sights on unaccompanied migrant children, wielding punitive measures to strip away their legal protections, block their safety, and push them further into fear and isolation.
Stripping Away Legal Lifelines
Last week, the Trump administration attempted to weaponize legal aid funding by issuing a stop-work order that would have cut federal support for organizations providing legal services to unaccompanied migrant children under the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s (ORR) Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Program. This move would have left nearly 26,000 children without critical legal representation, further deepening the wounds inflicted by past policies that tore families apart.
Fortunately, the order was rescinded on February 21. Nonprofits like the Acacia Center for Justice—an organization with a federal contract to serve unaccompanied minors—responded: “We welcome the news that the stop-work order on Acacia’s Unaccompanied Children Program has been lifted,” said Shaina Aber, executive director of the Acacia Center for Justice.
Despite the reversal, this cruel experiment was a test run—a glimpse of a future where migrant children are stripped of their rights, isolated, and deported with no due process.
This attack on legal aid is just one piece of a broader effort to dismantle protections for migrant children. In a series of moves that exacerbate an already overwhelming backlog of over 3.7 million immigration cases, the Trump administration’s Department of Justice dismissed 20 immigration judges, including several who had yet to even assume their roles. At the same time, policies such as curtailing interpretation services and terminating the “friends of the court” program—which provided basic legal support to unaccompanied minors—are deliberately designed to prolong detention, delay reunification with family members or sponsors, and, ultimately, push children toward deportation without a fair chance to be heard.
This is not about efficiency or rule of law—it is about engineering failure into the system so that children are left to navigate a hostile legal process alone, without representation, without protection, and with no real shot at justice.
New Tactics: Stricter Sponsorship Requirements and ICE’s Aggressive Pursuit
The administration has intensified its assault on unaccompanied children by imposing draconian requirements on sponsors. Under these new ORR policies, all adult household members must submit fingerprint background checks, present original documents, and meet stricter verification standards. These measures, framed as security precautions, are in reality a deterrence strategy, deliberately designed to scare away potential sponsors, leaving children trapped in a system that increasingly mirrors incarceration.
Meanwhile, ICE has issued a secret memo outlining plans to track down and deport unaccompanied migrant children. The memo sorts these children into priority groups, labeling them "flight risks" and “public safety threats”—a chilling effort to criminalize their existence. The plan instructs agents to expand surveillance and data-sharing to locate children who, despite seeking refuge, are now being hunted by the very system meant to protect them.
This marks a return to the darkest moments of Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, which ripped thousands of children from their parents’ arms. Only now, it is escalating—ensuring that more children are alone, vulnerable, and at risk of deportation.
The Budget Battle & The Call For Humane Reform
Trump’s war on children is not happening in a vacuum—it is part of a larger budgetary assault on the most vulnerable. While his administration seeks billions to expand deportation enforcement, the Senate’s budget proposal slashes funding for healthcare, food assistance, and social services—programs that millions of children depend on to survive.
This is the true face of Trump’s America: a government willing to fund mass deportations while starving children of food, medical care, and legal protection.
Jocelynn’s story is a devastating reminder of the consequences of unchecked cruelty. This is not just about policy—it is about the climate of terror Trump is deliberately creating. His administration is not just attacking unaccompanied migrant children—it is normalizing a world where all children of immigrants live in fear. This is a moral crisis, and the choice before us is clear: will we allow this government to strip children of their humanity, or will we fight for a future where no child is forced to live in fear? History will judge those who stayed silent. It is time for leaders to stand against this cruelty, defend the rights of all children, and reject a future where xenophobia dictates who deserves to be safe.