A majority of children taken into immigration custody by ICE are detained inside the U.S., not at borders, tearing families apart and causing severe emotional and financial distress. This practice starkly contradicts the 'family values' rhetoric of the administration responsible.
Between January and October 2025, 2,600 of the 3,800 children and infants taken into immigration custody were detained by ICE officers *inside* the United States, meaning they were not new arrivals at the border but often children with legal status going about their daily lives. Examples include five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, snatched from his driveway, and children delivered to detention centers after their parents' arrests. This mass deportation agenda, pursued by the Trump administration, has made family separation a routine occurrence, both within detention facilities and as a byproduct of internal roundups targeting ordinary people, many with legal status and no criminal record. Families with mixed immigration status are torn apart, with loved ones whisked into a vast network of often dirty and crowded detention centers, leaving those left behind with little information, immense fear, and significant financial and logistical burdens. The article highlights the profound irony and hypocrisy of this situation, noting that the same political figures who lecture on the importance of parenthood and family – such as Vice-President JD Vance and Donald Trump, who courted pro-natalists and appointed judges to overturn Roe v Wade – are actively destroying families by separating children from their parents. The author argues that this administration's actions expose a cynical view of family as a system of ownership and control, particularly valuing 'white babies and white births,' and ultimately vulgarize the honor and beauty of familial connections for projects of violence and exclusion, making a mockery of 'family values'.
