Trump’s ICE Arrested The Parents Of At Least 27,000 Kids With Experts Saying The Separation Can Have Lasting Impacts

Donald Trump’s administration arrested the parents of at least 27,000 children within just seven months as federal immigration authorities increasingly target families with kids to bolster the president’s mass deportation campaign.

Within that same time, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported twice as many parents each month compared to one year earlier, according to an analysis of government documents obtained by The Guardian. The administration has arrested many as 2,300 parents and deported roughly 1,400 every month, the analysis found.

The Guardian uncovered thousands of cases in which ICE sought to deport parents who had a different citizenship than their children, many of whom are U.S. citizens, underscoring the massive legal and logistical hurdles to retain family units under the president’s sweeping anti-immigration platform.

ICE is  required to ask anyone they arrest if they have children and “must allow those parents to decide what happens to their children if they are deported, even if they are not required to help facilitate choice,” according to a recent report from the Women’s Refugee Commission and Physicians for Human Rights.

Advocates say the administration is relying on apparent threats of family separation to force them to drop their immigration cases and leave the country voluntarily.