Why Social Workers Must Speak Up for Children in ICE Custody

  KSCSW   ADVOCACY BLOG

ADVOCACY  ·  CHILD WELFARE  ·  IMMIGRATION

By Carolynn Lee, LCSW, KSCSW Advocacy Chair  |  October 2026

Two children I can't stop thinking about

A recent article I came across forced me to realize that so many of us (including myself) have forgotten that there are still children in ICE Detention centers in our country. There is no news coverage and only limited information online. In the United States of America, at the moment you read this blog, there are children who continue to be detained and treated like criminals.

A two-year-old boy was held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas after his father was taken to a separate adult facility. He stopped eating for twelve days, and facility doctors attributed it to depression (Flagg et al., 2026).

Another little boy, just one year old, spent four months in detention at Dilley. By the end, he had lost almost every word he knew. He could still say "Mom" and "Dad" (Flagg et al., 2026).

I have spent most of my career sitting with people after trauma, and I recognize what these children's bodies are doing. When a toddler stops eating or loses his words, his nervous system is telling the adults around him that he is overwhelmed and well outside his window of tolerance. Children in our immigration detention system are telling us that right now. As social workers, we are trained to listen for exactly this kind of message, and I believe it is our responsibility to speak up.

What the numbers show

Between January 2025 and mid-March 2026, ICE detained more than 6,200 children, according to federal data analyzed by Flagg and Heffernan (2026b) of The Marshall Project. For comparison, ICE held an average of about 24 children a day in the final year of the previous administration.

At least 500 of those children were three years old or younger. On a typical day, about 25 babies and toddlers are in ICE custody, compared with fewer than three a day the year before (Flagg et al., 2026).

Many of these children stay far longer than the law allows. The Flores settlement generally limits child detention to 20 days. By early 2026, at least 1,000 children had been held past that limit (Flagg & Heffernan, 2026a), including at least 175 babies and toddlers (Flagg et al., 2026). Advocates now estimate the total is above 1,600 (TakeItBack.Org, 2026). At the same time, the federal government is asking the courts to end Flores altogether (Flagg & Heffernan, 2026b).

What we know as clinicians

Our field already has the framework to understand what is happening to these children are experiencing.

■       Toxic stress. When a young child's stress response stays switched on for weeks with no relief, it can disrupt brain development during the years when the brain is growing fastest. A calm, available caregiver usually protects a child, and detention either wears that parent down or removes them entirely.

■       Attachment. In infancy and toddlerhood, children are learning whether the world is safe and whether the adults they love will come back. Pediatrics professor Marsha Griffin describes this as probably the most harmful period of a child's life to be detained (Flagg et al., 2026).

■       Language and development. Little ones learn words through everyday back-and-forth with their parents. Fear and confinement tend to make both parent and child go quiet, and we see regression in speech, toileting, and feeding as a result.

■       Lasting effects. The ACE research many of us rely on tells us that early adversity builds on itself and follows children well after the experience ends. More than 3,600 children have been deported straight from detention, carrying that stress with them into a country that may be unfamiliar to them (Flagg & Heffernan, 2026b).

In my own trauma work, I see how much harder it is to help someone heal than it would have been to protect them in the first place.

The next facility: England Airpark, Louisiana

The system is still growing. In Alexandria, Louisiana, the England Airpark authority has partnered with ICE to turn old military barracks into a 528-bed facility for families and children (KALB, 2026).

The site sits on the former England Air Force Base, where groundwater testing has found some of the highest PFAS levels ever recorded, at least 575,000 times the federal drinking-water limits. The base is also contaminated with TCE and other volatile compounds, and officials have raised concerns about asbestos in the barracks (Perkins, 2026).

ICE calls the site a short-term staging area where families would stay a few days before deportation flights. Advocates worry children could end up there for weeks or months (Gallinaro, 2026), which is what has happened at Dilley. Local residents and faith leaders have filled public meetings to ask that the contract be canceled (TakeItBack.Org, 2026). Because children's growing bodies absorb environmental toxins more readily than adults' bodies do, I can't see any amount of time on that toxic ground as safe.

Why this is our work

Some colleagues have told me they see immigration as outside their lane, and I understand why it can feel that way. Still, our Code of Ethics names social justice and the dignity and worth of every person as core values. Standard 6.04 asks us to engage in social and political action, with special regard for vulnerable, disadvantaged, oppressed, and exploited people.

I can hardly think of anyone more vulnerable than a toddler who has no legal standing, no voice of their own, and no way to leave.

People of good faith hold many different views on immigration policy, and I'm not asking anyone to settle those debates here. I'm asking whether babies and toddlers should be confined in conditions that harm their development, and our profession has a long history with that question. Social workers helped build the juvenile court, fought to end child labor, and pushed for the child welfare protections we rely on today. Speaking up for children in detention belongs in that same tradition.

What you can do this week

1.    Contact your members of Congress. Call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to your two senators and your representative. Let them know you are a licensed social worker and a constituent, and ask them to:

• use their oversight authority to make unannounced visits to facilities holding children and families;

• enforce the 20-day Flores limit and oppose efforts to end it;

• fund community-based alternatives that keep families together; and

• block the England Airpark facility before it opens.

  
  

2.    Speak from your clinical experience. Lawmakers hear from advocates often, but they rarely hear a clinician explain toxic stress, attachment, and regression in plain language. Your training gives your voice real weight with them.

3.    Share this post with colleagues, supervisees, your agency, and your professional networks. Each additional call makes it harder for lawmakers to treat this as a fringe concern.

4.    Support families in your own community. Reach out to local immigrant-serving and legal aid organizations to learn what they need, and offer trauma-informed consultation or pro bono time if you are able.

5.    Stay connected to KSCSW advocacy. Watch for coalition sign-ons and action alerts, and please tell us what you are seeing in your practice.

A closing thought

Detention is drastically altering the outcomes of these children's lives. These children's wiring, attachments, and their basic sense that the world is safe are being formed right now, in places where no human can thrive.

They can't speak up for themselves, and their parents often can't either.

We can, and I hope you'll make that call this week and invite a colleague to join

with you.

About the author: Carolynn Lee, LCSW, is Advocacy Chair of the Kentucky Society for Clinical Social Work and a trauma-focused clinician in private practice in Lexington.

References

Flagg, A., & Heffernan, S. (2026a, February 6). Daily number of kids in ICE detention jumps 6x under Trump administration, report finds. The Marshall Project. https://www.kbtx.com/2026/02/06/daily-number-kids-ice-detention-jumps-6x-under-trump-administration-report-finds/

Flagg, A., & Heffernan, S. (2026b, April 6). ICE has detained 6,200+ kids in Trump's second term, up 10x since Biden left office. The Marshall Project. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2026/04/06/ice-kids-detention-over-6200-trump

Flagg, A., Heffernan, S., Guerrero, K., & Soboroff, J. (2026, June 9). 25 babies and toddlers are in ICE custody on an average day. The Marshall Project. https://themarshallproject.org/2026/06/09/babies-and-toddlers-in-ice-detention

Gallinaro, J. (2026, July 8). ICE to establish staging area for migrant families at England Park in Alexandria. Louisiana Radio Network. https://louisianaradionetwork.com/?p=47290

KALB. (2026, July 7). England Airpark to open ICE holding facility for families, children awaiting deportation flights. WAFB. https://www.wafb.com/2026/07/07/england-airpark-open-ice-holding-facility-families-children-awaiting-deportation-flights/

Perkins, T. (2026, April 25). ICE planning facility for children and families on PFAS-contaminated site. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/25/pfas-chemicals-ice-family-detention

TakeItBack.Org. (2026, October 1). ICE detention doesn't just interrupt childhood: It can rewire it [Email action alert].