A wave of immigration arrests under the Trump administration has torn an estimated 145,000 US citizen children away from a parent, and the paediatricians, therapists and teachers who treat them say the psychological damage is already plain to see.
Researchers at the Brookings Institution estimate that around 205,000 children, most of them American citizens, have lost a parent to detention since January 2025. The children left behind are regressing developmentally, refusing to eat, skipping school and showing the bodily symptoms of chronic stress, according to a joint investigation by KFF Health News and CBS News.
