ICE Separated 145,000 Children From Their Parents Since 2025, Study Estimates

Tens of thousands of children in the U.S. have had a parent detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since the start of Trump’s second term, according to a new report released by the Brookings Institution on Monday.

Brookings estimates that over 145,000 children who are U.S. citizens have had at least one of their parents booked into detention since Trump reentered the White House in January 2025. Over 22,000 of these children have had both of their live-in parents detained, the study estimates.

This number is far greater than previously understood. In March, ProPublica estimated that ICE had detained parents of at least 11,000 U.S. citizen children in the first seven months of Trump’s second term — nearly 50 children a day — and that the number could have reached about 22,000 by March. But this estimate used ICE data, which Brookings states is undercounting the actual numbers.

In September 2025, ICE reported a total of 18,277 parents detained who had U.S. citizen children, which Brookings states is certainly an undercount. While ICE regulations require that the agency ask detainees if they have children, the study says that in practice, this regularly does not happen, and some detainees avoid mentioning their children out of fear of what might happen to them or to others in their network.

Brookings instead matched detainees to individuals surveyed in the American Community Survey (ACS), a national household survey updated each month, and found that about 27 percent of detainees have a minor child at home, and 20 percent have U.S. citizen children at home.

These numbers are also far greater than the 5,500 children estimated to have been separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border during Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy in his first term — a policy that sparked mass protests and a movement to end family separation.

Of the estimated 400,000 ICE detentions from the start of Trump’s second term in January 2025 to April 2026, Brookings estimates that about 205,000 children have had a parent detained, and that around 145,000 of those children— over 72 percent — are U.S. citizens.

The report then breaks down the estimates by age group, suggesting that nearly 53,500 U.S. citizen children who have had a family detained by ICE have been under the age of 6, and nearly 53,000 have been between the ages of 6 and 12.

Brookings also examined which states had the highest rates of U.S. citizen children with a detained parent, and found that Washington, D.C. and Texas both have more than 5 in 1000 children with a parent detained by ICE.

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There is little to no data on what happens to these children, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not looked into whether children left behind end up in foster care, with friends or relatives, or traveling to meet their parents where they have been deported. Brookings notes that some 22,000 U.S. citizen children are left without any parent in the home.

“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 study says, noting that it estimates that only 5 percent of these children have received welfare services.

In a statement to The Guardian, a DHS spokesperson stated that “being in detention is a choice.”

“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 that the parent designates. This is consistent with past administrations’ immigration enforcement.”

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) commented on Tuesday on X, saying, “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….”

“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 notes that it expects detention to continue to expand due to the $45 billion allocated to building more immigration jails in the “Big Beautiful Bill.” It calls on DHS to report accurate data on parents and on the conditions of their children in the aftermath of detention and deportation, and demands that the government ensure affected children have access to support and protections.

But activists have said repeatedly that ICE must be defunded and abolished, and not just met with reforms. In fact, in a YouGov poll in January, more Americans said they supported abolishing ICE than were opposed.

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