Zain Lakhani From The Women’s Refugee Commission Explains Why ICE Is Deporting Parents Without Their Children

The Women’s Refugee Commission and Physicians for Human Rights recently published a report titled “What About My Children: Family Separation Among Parents Deported to Honduras,” based on field research conducted at deportee reception centers in San Pedro Sula.

Under the Trump administration’s own policy, ICE is required to ask anyone it arrests whether they are the primary caregiver of a minor child, and to give parents facing deportation the opportunity to decide whether their children will come with them or remain in the US. This detailed report documents routine violations of both requirements that should set off alarm bells for lawmakers and the American public. The majority of parents interviewed for this report were never asked about their children during arrest, detention, or deportation, and many who tried to raise the issue were dismissed or ignored. In case after case, parents were deported without being given any meaningful opportunity to arrange care for their children or to bring them along, even when they explicitly requested reunification through official channels.

The report also documents the detention and deportation of pregnant and postpartum women without adequate medical care, and the broader challenge of what happens after a parent is deported without their child. There is currently no legal right to reunification under US law and no established procedure within DHS for facilitating it. Receiving countries like Honduras lack the funding, infrastructure, and information from the US government needed to reunify families at scale, which means that separations that could have been prevented at the point of arrest may become long-term or permanent.