Does ICE regularly detain children?

What's this about?

People disagree about whether ICE often holds children in its care. ICE has held some children, mainly with parents, but we do not know how often today.

What supporters say

• ICE has run family centers where parents and children stayed together. (some evidence)
• Studies link child detention to worse body health and mental health. (some evidence)
• ICE has used child and family detention more than once over time. (weak evidence)

What critics say

• ICE numbers do not clearly show how often it holds children. (some evidence)
• HHS, not ICE, handles most children who arrive without parents. (some evidence)
• Rules on family detention have changed with each policy choice. (weak evidence)

How to read this

The number of points on each side does not show who is right; check how strong the proof is.

The bottom line

ICE has held children with their parents in family centers, and this can harm children. But the facts do not show ICE holds most migrant children, or that it does so often today.

ICE has detained children, especially children held with parents in family facilities. But the evidence does not show that ICE routinely detains all, or even most, migrant children today.

The case for

ICE has run a formal system of family detention, with standards for holding parents and children together in residential facilities. That is direct evidence that children were not simply passing through an administrative process: some were held in ICE custody with a parent or guardian. Research has also examined children inside U.S. immigration detention centers, confirming that this happened in practice. For several periods, ICE regularly detained accompanied children through family detention. 1

The record also suggests this was more than a one-off policy. ICE maintained family-residential standards and operational arrangements substantial enough that later decisions to reduce or end the practice represented a meaningful policy shift. That supports the view that family detention recurred during relevant periods, though it was not constant in every year. 2

There is also substantial evidence that detention can harm children. A systematic review and meta-analysis found consistent links between immigration detention and poorer physical and mental health. A U.S. study at a detention site similarly found high levels of distress and symptoms among detained children. These findings do not show how often ICE detained children nationwide, but they show why the practice matters. 3

The case against

The broadest version of the claim risks combining several different systems. Most unaccompanied children are handled by the Department of Health and Human Services, through its Office of Refugee Resettlement, rather than by ICE. Children may first encounter or be processed by a Homeland Security agency, but that does not mean ICE regularly holds them in long-term custody. 4

The available national data also cannot answer the frequency question cleanly. ICE and oversight bodies publish figures on arrests, removals, detention capacity and overall detained populations. But those data do not consistently separate minors from adults, or distinguish family detention from short-term processing and later HHS custody. They establish that ICE runs a large detention system, but not that children make up a regular or substantial share of it (see Figure 1). 5

Policy has changed over time as well. Reporting on an ICE court filing indicated that the agency was effectively ending family detention in 2021, even though it had previously maintained family facilities. That means a statement framed in the present tense can wrongly project earlier practices onto current conditions. 6

It is also important not to confuse children detained by ICE with children affected by ICE enforcement. A child can be deeply affected when a parent is detained without being detained themselves. Likewise, government figures on family-unit encounters or enforcement actions do not directly count children held in ICE custody.

The bottom line

The evidence favours a qualified yes, with high confidence: ICE has regularly detained some children, particularly accompanied children held with parents in family-detention facilities during certain historical periods.

But the evidence does not support the stronger, unqualified claim that ICE routinely detains all or most migrant children, or that it consistently does so today. The evidence is stronger on the existence of family detention and on its harms than on the national frequency of child detention. The central gap is the lack of consistent, age-specific national ICE data showing how many children were detained over time.