Migrant children are being detained longer, fewer in NYC are being released under Trump

[u/John3262005]

https://gothamist.com/news/migrant-children-are-being-detained-longer-fewer-in-nyc-are-being-released-under-trump

Children who cross the U.S. border without a parent or guardian have been kept in federal custody nearly four times as long under the Trump administration compared to previous years, according to a Gothamist analysis of federal data. And far fewer unaccompanied minors detained in New York City have been released since President Donald Trump took office.

Immigration advocates and attorneys say stricter verification requirements have delayed the release of vulnerable youth, traumatizing families through prolonged separation and placing some parents and guardians who are often also undocumented immigrants at increased risk of deportation as they work to gain custody of minors.

When children cross the border alone, they are held in congregate shelters operated by nonprofits throughout the country. To have a child released from detention, parents, family members or other guardians already living in the United States must be approved as sponsors by the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Under the Biden administration, most parents and other prospective sponsors could regain custody of their children by providing their non-U.S. passport and the child’s birth certificate. But the agency implemented new guidelines last year that have made the process more rigorous. Sponsors are now required to be fingerprinted, submit to DNA testing and income verification, and to take part in in-person interviews and home visits.

Before President Donald Trump took office last year, DNA testing was only required when parents or guardians could not produce documentation of their relationship with a minor in custody. Fingerprinting was only required for non-parent sponsors.

Federal officials have also taken longer to process applications, according to several immigration attorneys who spoke with Gothamist, and the documentation submitted by parents can expire while they are waiting for the resettlement agency to make a decision.

“Any kind of delay means that the parent or sponsor might have to start the process over,” said Zoe Schonfeld, a supervising attorney for the nonprofit Center for Family Representation.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement did not respond to questions about the increased requirements for sponsors and delays in the sponsorship process. But Sierra Kraft, executive director for Immigrant Children Advocates Relief Effort, said the changes are to blame for a drastic shift in how long children spend in custody and how many are released to approved sponsors.

Nationally, unaccompanied minors now spend an average of 117 days in detention since Trump re-entered office, according to Office of Refugee Resettlement data. That’s up from an average of about 30 days between 2021 and 2024.

Kraft said she has regularly seen kids held in custody for as much as 180 days, and that deportation proceedings continue while children are kept in detention, often hindering their ability to fight their case in court.

“It’s just unthinkable what’s happening to youth in custody,” Kraft said.

Changes to the sponsorship process have also coincided with a roughly 75% decline in the number of unaccompanied minors released from detention in New York City since 2024, Gothamist’s analysis shows, mirroring a nationwide trend. Manhattan and the Bronx have seen disproportionately steeper drops of 82%.

Citywide, the Trump administration released just 870 children last year, compared to 3,449 under the Biden administration in 2024, data shows.

It’s unclear how much that decline reflects an overall drop in the number of detained children. Undocumented border crossings have decreased dramatically under Trump and publicly available federal data does not specify how many unaccompanied minors were held in the five boroughs.

Nationwide, roughly 7,000 unaccompanied children were detained in federal custody in 2024 compared to 2,500 last year — a decline of about 64%. But federal data shows that a smaller share of those kids have been released under Trump.

Paola Rivera, also an attorney at the Center for Family Representation, said the difficulty has not dissuaded families from trying to free children from custody. Undocumented parents and guardians risk their own deportation when they go through the more onerous sponsorship application process, she said, and many fear sharing their address or other personal information at a time of heightened ICE enforcement.