More than 145,000 U.S. citizen children have likely experienced the detention of at least one parent since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution that is raising alarm among immigration advocates, researchers, and lawmakers over the scale of family disruption tied to the administration’s expanding detention and deportation operations.
The report, released Monday, estimates that approximately 146,635 U.S. citizen children had a parent detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement between the beginning of Trump’s second term and April 2026. Researchers also estimated that more than 22,000 children experienced the detention of all co-resident parents, leaving them without any live-in parent remaining in the household.
The findings point to a much broader form of family separation than the policy that drew widespread condemnation during Trump’s first presidency, when roughly 5,500 children were separated from family members at the U.S.-Mexico border under the administration’s “zero tolerance” strategy. While that earlier policy centered largely on border crossings, the new Brookings findings describe a nationwide pattern unfolding through interior immigration enforcement operations carried out in communities across the United States.
Brookings estimated that approximately 205,000 children overall had a parent detained by ICE between January 2025 and April 2026, with roughly 72 percent of those children identified as U.S. citizens. Researchers found that very young children make up a significant share of those affected. Nearly 53,500 U.S. citizen children with a detained parent were under the age of six, while nearly 53,000 were between the ages of six and 12. The Guardian separately reported that roughly 36 percent of affected U.S. citizen children were younger than six years old.
The report also found major geographic concentrations in the impact of detention. According to Brookings, Washington, D.C. and Texas had the highest rates of U.S. citizen children affected by parental detention, with more than five per 1,000 children experiencing the detention of a parent. Researchers further found that nearly 54 percent of affected U.S. citizen children were linked to parents from Mexico, while children with parents from Guatemala and Honduras together accounted for more than 25 percent of the total.
The report argues that official government figures substantially undercount the true number of children affected by immigration detention because ICE frequently fails to consistently collect information regarding detainees’ children. In September 2025, ICE reported that 18,277 detained individuals had U.S. citizen children, but Brookings described the figure as “almost certainly a substantial undercount.”
According to the report, ICE regulations require officers to ask detainees whether they have children, but researchers said the process often does not occur in practice. The report also states that some detainees may avoid disclosing information about children because they fear possible consequences for family members or others connected to them.
To estimate the number of affected children, Brookings researchers used demographic data from the Detention Data Project and matched detainee characteristics, including region of origin and marital status, with undocumented individuals identified through the American Community Survey, a nationally representative household survey updated each month. Using that methodology, researchers estimated that about 27 percent of detainees have a minor child at home and that approximately 20 percent have U.S. citizen children living in the household.
The findings also highlight the lack of federal data tracking what happens to children after parents are detained or deported. Brookings stated that there is little to no information available regarding whether children enter foster care, remain with relatives or friends, leave the country to reunite with deported parents, or receive child welfare support services after a parent is taken into ICE custody.
“Based on interviews with community organizations and child welfare agencies, it appears that most children of detainees are living with family and friends or perhaps leaving the country, with child protection as a last resort,” the report states.
Brookings estimated that only about 5 percent of affected children have received welfare services.
The report arrives as detention levels continue to increase under Trump’s second term. Brookings estimated that ICE carried out approximately 400,000 detentions between January 2025 and April 2026. Earlier reporting from ProPublica estimated that ICE detained parents of at least 11,000 U.S. citizen children during the first seven months of Trump’s second term, a pace affecting nearly 50 children each day. That estimate projected the number could have reached approximately 22,000 by March 2025. Brookings argued that official ICE data likely captured only a fraction of the actual scale.
A separate Guardian investigation found that the Trump administration arrested roughly 18,400 parents and deported approximately 1,400 parents each month during 2025, nearly doubling the monthly deportation rate recorded during the final year of Joe Biden’s presidency.
Researchers also warned that millions more children remain vulnerable to detention-related family separation. According to Brookings, roughly 13 million adults in the United States are undocumented or possess only limited legal protections. As a result, more than 4.6 million U.S. citizen children currently live with at least one parent vulnerable to deportation, while approximately 2.5 million children could face the detention of all parents in their household.
The Department of Homeland Security defended the administration’s policies in statements provided to The Guardian, rejecting the characterization of detention practices as forced family separation.
“Being in detention is a choice,” a DHS spokesperson said.
“ICE does not separate families,” the spokesperson continued. “Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates. This is consistent with past administrations’ immigration enforcement.”
The spokesperson also stated that “parents can take control of their departure” from the United States using the CBP Home application “and reserve the chance to come back the right legal way”.
Immigration advocates and researchers have challenged those claims, arguing that many parents are not consistently given meaningful opportunities to decide what happens to their children. The article references a March report by the Women’s Refugee Commission and Physicians for Human Rights that found the Trump administration deported numerous immigrant parents without asking whether they had children or allowing them to decide whether their children would accompany them.
Democratic lawmakers also condemned the findings and warned about the long-term impact of family separation on children. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto responded publicly to the Brookings report on Tuesday.
“This is horrifying. What does it say about our values as a country if we not only allow the Trump Admin. to separate children from their parents, but also spend even more money on this cruel scheme….” Cortez Masto wrote on X.
“Family separations cause lasting trauma that no child should ever have to endure,” she continued. “The Trump Admin. needs to reunite these families, and they must be held accountable for the harms they have inflicted on innocent children.”
Brookings researchers warned that the scale of detention could continue to expand because Congress allocated approximately $45 billion for additional immigration detention facilities through legislation referred to as the “Big Beautiful Bill.” The report argues that the federal government has an obligation to track the consequences of immigration enforcement on children and provide support for affected families.
“For both logistical and political reasons, the administration will not achieve its stated goal of removing every unauthorized immigrant from the United States,” the researchers wrote.
“At a minimum, DHS should collect and publicly report accurate data on the number of parents facing detention or deportation, as well as the number of US citizen children who leave the country following a parent’s removal,” the report continued.
The report concludes by warning that expanding immigration enforcement without protections for affected children will deepen the humanitarian consequences of mass detention and deportation policies.
“As immigration enforcement expands, ensuring that affected children have access to basic supports and protections should be understood not as optional, but as a necessary governmental responsibility tied to the foreseeable consequences of family separation and displacement.”
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