A six-year-old child plays with a toy airplane, occasionally looking up at the man in the black robe. A three-year-old is fascinated by the microphone and a young teen makes eye contact with her friend. This happened in a Texas courtroom not long ago where 25 migrant children lined pews as the judge told them the meeting was serious and they needed to pay attention. He reminded them that he would decide whether they could stay in the United States or be sent away as their smiling faces gave way to fear. That happened last year when 600 children were held in immigration detention facilities, as reported by the American Immigration Lawyers Association and CNN.

Since then, it’s gotten worse. More kids have been picked up by ICE when they appear for immigration hearings and appointments, and in churches, schools, hospitals, and shelters. As CNN pointed out, “These children will face the cruelty of an adult-centric system, further weaponized by Trump Administration policies.” Today children as young as two years old are appearing before judges in immigration courts nationwide, many without lawyers or adult support. Just let that sink in. Two years old.

Those who can talk and understand the severity of the situation often plead with the judge for compassion, but it often falls on deaf ears. One boy, age 13, told the judge that his entire family were here and “it’s too dangerous to go back” before he broke into tears. “I have no one, I have nothing.” The judge told him the law was very strict before giving him the option of a voluntary departure or a removal order. Then the judge gave him less than a month to appeal his deportation.

What human being can tell a frightened, shamed child that he will be ripped away from his family and held in a detention center, really a jail, indefinitely. What president of the United States, and his acolytes – think Stephen Miller - forces children to navigate a complicated process that they can’t possibly understand? Is humanity dead?

The federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 was supposed to provide protections for unaccompanied migrant children, but attorneys and advocates told CNN that those protections are being undermined under the Trump administration, which has sped up the process recently, and eliminated the requirement for children to have legal representation through the entire process. What kind of a human being does that to children?

The Trump administration has also let lapse a contract valued at over $200 million a year for legal services to be provided by the Acadia Center for Justice [ https://acaciajustice.org/] whose cadre of lawyers have provided legal services for more than 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children across the U.S.

Now, according to The Guardian in April this year, ICE began planning a detention facility for children and their families on one of the country’s most contaminated sites in country. It’s called England Airpark, formerly a military facility in Louisiana. Groundwater there has been found to be at levels of Pfas contaminants that are at least 575,000 times higher than ever recorded. There may also be asbestos in the barracks, and in a “first of it’s kind” short term facility it is situated next to a runway for rapid deportation.

Josh Helgott is a social critic who posts on Facebook regularly about Trump administration abuses. In August one of his posts revealed that “ICE agents are threatening children with guns and using violence to detain them.” He revealed that “more than 8,500 children have been detained since Trump returned, often where lawyers and families couldn’t find them.” In several states, including Massachusetts and Florida, ICE arrested more than twice as many children in the first seven months of 2026 as in 2025.” Often these kids are pulled out of school and courtrooms. In one case an attorney asked the judge to consider her client “next” because she needed to eat and take a nap.

What kind of a civilized nation does this to vulnerable children?

The Guardian has also reported on “a swathe of cuts including supports such as food benefits for a million children are under way. And for the 2027 federal budget, the administration is proposing cuts to nutrition programs for women and children [WIC] and home energy assistance for low income families, and a $bn cut to the budget of the National Institutes of Health and the elimination of a federal preschool development grant program. Speaking of child health, the administration has recently cut funds for brain cancer research in children, and has little interest in measles vaccinations.

There are other ways that children are subject to being treated with cruelty. They include domestic violence, guns, child marriage, education cuts, Medicaid cuts, and corporal punishment. Each of these deserves attention from all quarters, and urgently needed humane policies, because we’re talking about children and our progeny is our collective responsibility.

All of which makes clear that this government has no interest in children except from conception to birth. It’s pro-life B.S. ends there. The perpetrators of all forms of child abuse need to be reckoned with and removed swiftly. We have a chance to start changing things for the generations to come. Let’s get on it.