Immigration agents arrested the parents of at least 27,000 children during the first seven months of Donald Trump's presidency, according to a Guardian analysis of government records. The scale of family separation dwarfs even the controversial "zero tolerance" policy of Trump's first term, when the administration systematically separated migrant children from parents at the southern border.
The data comes from I-213 forms, the documents immigration agents complete every time they arrest someone they allege to be in the country without authorization. These forms record ages, nationalities, and crucially, the number and nationalities of minor children. From January through August 2025, agents arrested 18,400 parents, including 15,000 fathers and 3,400 mothers.
The Trump administration has deported roughly twice as many parents each month compared with the final year of the Biden presidency. In 2024, federal deportations averaged 700 parents monthly. Under Trump, that figure jumped to approximately 1,400 per month, with arrests averaging 2,300 parents monthly.
At least 12,000 of the arrested parents have U.S. citizen children. Nearly 8,500 parents held different nationalities than at least one of their children, a complication that creates severe legal and logistical barriers to keeping families intact. In roughly half of those cases, siblings themselves held different citizenships from one another.
One case exemplifies the human toll. LT, a 30-year-old Haitian asylum seeker, spent three months detained in Texas, separated from her 13-month-old daughter in Florida by 1,500 miles. The child, allergic to formula with multiple food sensitivities, required breastmilk and was vomiting constantly. When her pediatrician petitioned the government to allow LT to pump and mail breastmilk from the Dilley detention center, the request was denied. Her plea to have her U.S. citizen daughter brought to the detention center was also rejected, on the grounds that a U.S. citizen child cannot be housed in an immigration facility.
LT fled Haiti after supporters of a rival political faction burned her house, kidnapped and raped her. Her sister was murdered last year. She fears returning would mean death and that her daughter could not access necessary medical care there. She also worries her infant will end up in foster care, as her elderly mother struggles to work full time while caring for a baby with complicated health needs.
The broader impact extends far beyond individual cases. When KO, a 41-year-old Guatemalan mother of three, was arrested at an ICE check-in appointment, an officer told her that he didn't care if she and her 19-month-old child "died." Herminia was held separately from her children for eight months, during which her younger daughter developed sleep problems and her teenage son considered dropping out of school to work and support his sister. After Marco was deported to El Salvador following a Home Depot arrest in Maryland, his 17-year-old U.S. citizen son spent his final high school months working to afford rent.
Families have scrambled for funds after losing primary breadwinners. Teenagers and young adults have abandoned school to care for younger siblings. Children separated from deported parents face the possibility they may never reunite, particularly when those parents return to countries where they face death threats or violence.
The records likely undercount actual family separations. Immigration officials frequently fail to ask arrestees whether they have children, and parents often withhold that information to protect their families from detention or deportation. The Department of Homeland Security, while refusing to verify the data Guardian obtained through a freedom of information lawsuit, claims the agency asks parents if they wish to be removed with their children and denies deliberately separating families.
Faisal Al-Juburi of the legal aid nonprofit Raíces described the crisis as reaching "metastasis." "I don't think we've even begun as a nation to grapple with the impact of this type of immigration enforcement and the domino effect it will have," he said. ProPublica's separate analysis using the same records found the administration deporting four times as many mothers of U.S. citizens per day compared with the Biden administration.
Many detained parents have fled dangerous conditions and cannot risk bringing children with them. If deported without their children, the separation could become indefinite. EFA, a Venezuelan asylum seeker arrested at a routine ICE check-in in October, now faces potential deportation that would bar her from re-entering the U.S. for a decade. Her two-year-old son, whose father is also an asylum seeker facing potential arrest, would be left without either parent if both are detained.
Author James Rodriguez: "This is mass deportation policy with a hammer, and the kids left behind are taking the hardest hits."
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