Trump administration is deporting parents without their children in violation of its own policies, report finds | Trump administration

The Trump administration is deporting significant numbers of parents without asking them if they have children or allowing them to decide whether to take their children with them, in apparent violation of its own policies, according to a major report.

In interviews with dozens of parents deported to Honduras, as well as doctors and psychologists, government officials, and staff at deportee reception centers, researchers found that many parents were deported quickly after detention, without the opportunity to care for their children.

According to the report by the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), parents were forced to leave their children in the informal care of friends or family members who were also vulnerable to deportation. Others were separated from young children and toddlers – including a mother who was deported without her two-month-old baby.

Immigration officials “didn’t ask me anything,” a 22-year-old mother told researchers in Honduras, where she was sent without her two-year-old child. “They never said, ‘You have a daughter, you can bring her,’ because I would have brought [my daughter]she is very attached to me.

Meanwhile, some pregnant and postpartum women had arrived at reception centers in Honduras and displayed “extremely high levels of emotional distress,” including symptoms of anxiety and panic, according to center staff.

“What we found is quite significant evidence that [Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers] don’t ask about people’s children at the time of their arrest. They are not ensuring that these children are cared for safely and are not giving parents the opportunity to decide what happens to their children if they are deported,” said Zain Lakhani, director of migrant rights and justice at the WRC.

The researchers said they chose to interview the parents in Honduras, after their deportation, because the administration was making it increasingly difficult for lawmakers and lawyers to visit immigrants in U.S. detention centers. The researchers were stationed at three deportee reception centers in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, for five days. They met 163 women – including three visibly pregnant – and 1,094 men.

Michele Heisler, a PHR doctor who interviewed parents in Honduras, said several of them said they tried to explain to immigration agents that they had children but were ignored. “We’ve talked to parents who were arrested one day and were literally deported a few days later,” Heisler said. Some did not have the opportunity to speak to an attorney or coordinate with co-parents or other family members to reunite with their children before their deportation.

“This type of sudden, traumatic separation for parents and children — I think it’s fair to say it’s going to create a very high burden of mental distress,” Heisler said.

The impact can be particularly severe for tender-aged children and babies who are too young to understand why their parent left. “For a toddler, they experience a sense of abandonment that is sort of imprinted,” she said. Studies show that early trauma can have lasting psychological and physiological consequences.

“It is difficult for all of us to understand why this wanton level of cruelty is occurring,” she added.

Some of the parents interviewed were separated from disabled and neurodivergent children. One mother interviewed by researchers said she was detained while dropping her autistic son off at school. “I left him and when I came back I saw men were coming. They didn’t ask me anything, they just handcuffed me and I couldn’t even say a word.”

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has denied the separation of families. “Parents have a choice: they can be removed with their children or placed with a safe person they designate,” a spokesperson said in a statement to the Guardian.

Previous reporting by the Guardian, as well as the report’s findings, suggest that this is not always the case.

Although the report was conducted in Honduras, Lakhani noted, she suspects those deported to other countries likely face similar obstacles to reunification.

In July 2025, the administration amended its “Detained Parents Directive,” weakening protections for noncitizen parents and walking back its commitments to keeping families together. For example, the 2022 version of the directive stated that ICE must consider whether or not a person is a child’s parent or legal guardian in its detention or deportation decisions. The 2025 version of the directive no longer includes these guidelines.

But interviews with deportees arriving in Honduras show that the administration is not even following its current policy on family separation. “We found some pretty significant evidence that ICE [officials] don’t ask about people’s children at the time of their arrest. They are not ensuring that these children are cared for safely and are not giving parents the opportunity to decide what happens to their children if they are deported,” Lakhani said.

Once parents are removed from their children, it can be incredibly difficult, expensive, and logistically complicated to reunite their children. Although the Honduran government has some capacity to help parents with their reunification efforts, it lacks a formal process to receive and process parents’ requests.

If the children of those deported are U.S. citizens, the process of obtaining the necessary documents for the children to live in Honduras can also be complicated, as it requires the consent of both parents. “What happens if the child’s father is not known to or in contact with the mother? What happens if the child’s other parent is in U.S. custody and cannot be contacted? What happens if he is a Mexican national and has been deported to Mexico?” » said Lakhani.

Often, deported parents are forced to leave their children with co-parents, family members, or friends who may also be undocumented and vulnerable to arrest and deportation. These adults may also be afraid to contact the U.S. government to coordinate a child’s reunification with parents, or may not have the funds or travel documents needed to accompany the child to Honduras.

In particular, the report recommends that the Honduran government invest more to help deportees reintegrate and prioritize aid to deported parents. It also calls on international organizations, including the United Nations, to coordinate and consult with the Honduran government to provide sexual and reproductive health care as well as mental health care to deportees.

The report also calls on the U.S. Congress to codify policies to protect families and pregnant women in the immigration system, and calls on DHS to “identify, document, and protect medically vulnerable individuals in ICE custody” and create a “national child welfare coordinator” for family reunification.