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Thousands of Children, Sponsors Arrested by ICE After Tips from U.S. Child Migrant Agency · GNN Daily Breaking News

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  Speaker 1: A Reuter's investigation has revealed that more than twelve thousand
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  Speaker 1: migrant children, their sponsors, and relatives have been arrested by
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  Speaker 1: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement IC since twenty twenty five,
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  Speaker 1: after the Office of Refugee Resettlement ORR shared hundreds of
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  Speaker 1: thousands of leads with immigration authorities. The findings highlight a
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  Speaker 1: dramatic policy shift that has blurred the line between child
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  Speaker 1: welfare and immigration enforcement. OURR, originally tasked with caring for
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  Speaker 1: unaccompanied miners, has historically operated separately from IC under a
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  Speaker 1: two thousand and eight law designed to protect children and
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  Speaker 1: sponsors regardless of legal status, but under the Trump administration,
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  Speaker 1: those safeguards were reversed. Since then, OR has provided IC
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  Speaker 1: with over four hundred sixty thousand leads, enabling enforcement agents
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  Speaker 1: to track down sponsors and household members. Hum an impact
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  Speaker 1: has been profound. Migrant children now spend an average of
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  Speaker 1: nearly two hundred days in custody, compared to about thirty
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  Speaker 1: days before the policy change. Families who step forward to
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  Speaker 1: sponsor children risk detention and deportation themselves, creating fear that
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  Speaker 1: discourages reunification. One case illustrates the consequences A twenty four
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  Speaker 1: year old mother named Aurora was reunited with her six
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  Speaker 1: year old daughter after months in a shelter, only to
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  Speaker 1: be detained days later and sent to a family detention
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  Speaker 1: center in Texas. Advocates say such arrests traumatize children and
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  Speaker 1: undermine the very purpose of rr's mission. Supporters of the
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  Speaker 1: policy argue that cooperation between RR and IC is necessary
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  Speaker 1: to enforce immigration law and prevent fraud in sponsorship. Critics
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  Speaker 1: counter that the approach weaponizes child welfare systems, turning them
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  Speaker 1: into tools of enforcement and leaving vulnerable families exposed. The
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  Speaker 1: scale of arrests, more than twelve thousand in just over
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  Speaker 1: a year, underscores how deeply the policy has reshaped the
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  Speaker 1: migrant experience for many families. Reunification now comes with the
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  Speaker 1: risk of detention. For children, prolonged custody means extended separation
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  Speaker 1: from loved ones and heightened psychological stress. The revelations are
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  Speaker 1: likely to intensify debate ahead of the twenty twenty six
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  Speaker 1: mid terms. Immigration remains a defining issue, and the intersection
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  Speaker 1: of child welfare and enforcement could become a flashpoint. Lawmakers
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  Speaker 1: face the challenge of balancing border security with humanitarian obligations,
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  Speaker 1: while communities grapple with the consequences of policies that place
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  Speaker 1: children at the center of enforcement strategies. Ultimately, the investigation
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  Speaker 1: highlights the human cost of immigration enforcement. Behind the statistics
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  Speaker 1: are families torn apart, chilled are in left in limbo,
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  Speaker 1: and a system struggling to reconcile care with control.