Trump administration targets children amid push to ‘deport at all costs’

The Trump administration is deliberately targeting children who came to the US unaccompanied by a parent or guardian as it pushes to quickly return them to the countries they fled – amid “drastic policy changes” in immigration courts, according to allegations in a federal lawsuit shared with the Guardian.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are trying to prevent imminent deportation to the places from where they escaped danger or harm.

The complaint, filed before the US district court for the eastern district of Pennsylvania on behalf of Jewish Family and Community Services of Pittsburgh (JFCS) and six of its immigrant clients, alleges that kids are being repatriated “as a means to increase deportation numbers of children as ‘priorities’ for US immigration enforcement” despite many of those kids qualifying to remain in the country legally. Meanwhile, immigration judges have allegedly received instructions to not give children a meaningful amount of time for their immigration applications to be processed by other federal agencies, amid accelerated immigration court hearings, the plaintiffs detail in the lawsuit.

“This case is about the most vulnerable in our immigration system: abused, abandoned, neglected, and trafficked children,” the lawsuit reads. “One would assume it would be a priority of our immigration system to protect, at least, these children. However, protecting vulnerable and trafficked children conflicts with an agenda of ‘deport at all costs’.”

The government agencies sued are the Department of Justice, which oversees US immigration courts, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (Uscis).

Unaccompanied immigrant children often come to the US as victims of human trafficking or domestic violence, a reality Congress addressed by providing them with legal pathways to lawful permanent residency. One of those pathways, Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) classification, safeguards young people who have been mistreated by one or both parents. Another pathway, T nonimmigrant status, supports trafficking survivors at any age.

Such protections – and for SIJ, its affiliated green card – can take years to win, especially in the face of long backlogs and annual quotas that are outside the applicants’ control. So, historically, immigration judges have used tools in their judicial toolbox to give children reprieves from deportation while pursuing SIJ or T status with USCIS.

But that practice has been eroding for months now under the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign, and starting in June, JFCS noticed a pattern where clients – some of whom had already been awarded SIJ and were awaiting their green card – were being ordered removed instead of receiving more time for their cases. By July, the organization said, the same was happening to kids who had survived trafficking.

“Hearings are advanced on days’ notice, juvenile dockets compressed to biweekly appearances; and on information and belief, judges who afford children time are penalized,” according to the complaint, adding: “JFCS counsel were advised that the court intends to complete the juvenile docket by November 2026.”

One of the affected children, identified in the filing by the initials FYCT, is a 17-year-old trafficking survivor from Guatemala living in a federally contracted shelter. The Department of Health and Human Services’s office on trafficking in persons sent her a letter in May saying “we have determined that you were subjected to a severe form of trafficking in persons”, and she has since applied for T status.

Yet, last month, the Philadelphia immigration court still ordered her deported, a decision she is appealing.

“[Homeland security secretary] Markwayne Mullin said any child who’s trafficked we will protect, right? We will find them. We will protect them. And that’s not what I’m seeing happening,” Dana Gold, JFCS’s chief operating officer, told the Guardian.

Another JFCS client, identified as KTN, a 19-year-old from Vietnam who is now in Pennsylvania, fled “severe and repeated physical abuse by his father”, according to the complaint. His SIJ application was approved in May, yet the immigration court still ruled that he would be ordered deported in July, a decision that could deny him the chance to receive a green card despite qualifying for one.

“We truly have no idea what we are sending them back to, or who we are sending them back to in some cases,” said Sarah Hough, director of immigration legal services at JFCS.

The executive office for immigration review (EOIR), part of the justice department, which oversees the nation’s immigration courts, declined to comment, via a spokesperson.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement sent to Pittsburgh’s Public Source that its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency was trying to stop trafficking among children.

“President Trump and DHS are laser-focused on protecting children and will continue to work with federal, state, and local law enforcement to reunite children with their families,” said the statement, adding: “All illegal aliens receive due process.”

The lawsuit comes as the federal government ends a contract funding lawyers for more than 20,000 unaccompanied children in immigration proceedings, a choice Gold likened to stripping away kids’ protection. And already, many kids across the country have been facing judges without legal representation.

At the same time, children are being funneled into immigration court en masse for hearings starting at 7.45am and going until late afternoon or evening. At one of these court appearances, Hough said, she witnessed an attorney asking the judge if her client could be next in line because it was time for the little one to eat lunch and have a nap.

“We are talking about children,” Hough said, “and the way that court is set up right now, it is not in any way in the best interest of these kids.”

Hough said that, at her non-profit alone, hundreds of young clients are now at risk of deportation because of the immigration courts’ policy changes. Kids who have already received removal orders have reacted with confusion, disbelief and fear.

“What a society will tolerate happening to children,” Gold said, “they will tolerate happening to anyone.”