Deportations of Once-Protected Immigrant Children Have Tripled Under Trump

Children who entered the U.S. alone are being detained and removed at roughly three times the rate of the final years of the first Trump administration, a ProPublica analysis found, with immigration courts issuing more than 10,000 removal and voluntary-departure orders for minors each month. The administration has gutted policies that gave immigrant minors access to legal counsel and time to pursue relief. Among those caught up is Elder Chavez, an 18-year-old high school student with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status — granted because he was abandoned as a toddler in Honduras — who now sits in Louisiana’s Winn Correctional Center facing deportation after a traffic violation.