If President Trump follows through on his campaign promise to deport as many as 2 million to 3 million undocumented immigrants, we know that many of those being deported will be parents of children born in the United States. Consequently, child welfare advocates fear that the surge will prompt a spike in foster care admissions for those children left “abandoned.” What else is supposed to happen when a child gets home from school to find that his or her parents have been taken away?
There are 5.1 million children under age 18, both U.S. citizens and noncitizens, who are living with an undocumented immigrant parent. According to the Migration Policy Institute, more than one-third of undocumented immigrants within the country report having U.S. citizen children under 18 for whom they are responsible. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s own assessment of a two-year period from 2010 to 2012 shows 204,810 removals for parents of U.S. citizen children. Some of those children left with their parents; many others were placed with relatives; a small portion were placed into foster care. State welfare agencies don’t track the number of children who come into care due to parental deportation, but in a 2011 report, “Shattered Families,” by organization Race Forward, it is estimated that 5,000 children then were in the foster care system because of parental deportation. Race Forward also estimated that between 2011 and 2016, there would be 15,000 more children like this in the U.S.. But if the Trump promise is fulfilled, that number could be 10 times as many. The likely outcomes for these children are not good, due largely to abandonment, fear, anxiety and uncertainty.
