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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Maya Yang

Over 145,000 US children separated from parents since Trump’s ICE surge, study estimates

family members stand in a hallway
The family of a detained migrant speaks to immigration officers in an attempt to gain information at the US immigration court in Manhattan, New York City, on 16 January 2026. Photograph: David Dee Delgado/Reuters

More than 145,000 US children have probably experienced a parent being detained by immigration authorities since the start of Donald Trump’s second presidency, according to a new report published by a reputed US thinkthank.

The report, released on Monday by the Brookings Institution, estimates that about 146,635 children who are US citizens have had a parent detained during the mass deportation campaign the Trump administration embarked on after he retook office in early January. The study further found that of those children, more than 22,000 experienced the detention of all of their co-resident parents.

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