Ruptured Families: The U.s. Citizen Children Left Behind By Deportations
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Suma Setty, senior policy analyst for immigration and immigrant families at the Center for Law and Social Policy, a nonprofit that focuses on low-income families in Washington, D.C., said the directive may be unenforced.
“There’s no accountability mechanism in place to make sure that ICE officers actually account for parents’ rights,” she said. “There [are] a lot of reports out there that have found that ICE is not doing that and that children have been left in dangerous situations.” She described a mother with children in the Detroit metro area who went a week without eating in October 2025 because she was too afraid to go to the grocery store.
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She’s not the only one to get spooked. A WIC provider in Texas told researchers that whenever patrol cars were parked near her clinic, families would call to cancel appointments, according to a report called “Caregiving in Crisis,” published in April.
If something happened to their mother, Lazo’s children’s options are limited. They have cousins here, but they are undocumented too.
In its report, CLASP documented five early childhood educators who had been asked by parents to serve as temporary guardians in case they were detained.
