Mother Jones
· collected 2026-10-05 · by Samantha Michaels and Isabela Dias
For several days this spring, trapped inside a Texas immigration detention center, Luis made frantic phone calls, one after the other, to everyone he could think of.
uncertain
he → trap → everyone
Could anyone help him find his 11-year-old son?
uncertain
him → help → son
He’d last seen Andrés, a sensitive boy who likes to draw and paint, at an ICE holding facility near Camp East Montana, the sprawling detention center on a military base in El Paso where Luis now found himself.
asserted
Luis → see → himself
Luis and Andrés had come to the United States from Venezuela in 2023.
asserted
Luis → come → 2023
They were taken into custody together this past April after Luis, a construction worker, was arrested by federal agents outside his home.
asserted
Luis → take → home
For hours, he and Andrés sat alone in a cell that felt to them like a dungeon.
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that → sit → dungeon
Around midnight, ICE officers showed up and ordered the boy to come with them.
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officers → show → them
No, Luis had pleaded.
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Luis → plead → ?
Andrés was just a kid—he needed his dad.
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he → need → dad
But the officers seemed unmoved, he said, slipping on gloves and tugging on the boy’s arms as father and son clung to one another.
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father → seem → one
Luis recalled that the officers promised Andrés would be in touch with him, so he let go and watched them take him away.
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them → recall → him
Three days had since gone by without a word, and Luis was in a state of panic.
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Luis → go → panic
Neither he nor his family on the outside—Andrés’ mother and stepmom—could get any information on the child’s whereabouts.
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he → get → whereabouts
Where had they taken him?
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they → take → him
“Since he was little he’s been with me,” Luis told us later from detention, his voice filled with anguish.
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voice → tell → anguish
(Luis and Andrés are pseudonyms, and other family members’ names were changed to protect their privacy.
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names → change → privacy
Some attorneys who spoke with us also requested anonymity, in order to describe cases without exposing their clients.
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who → speak → clients
Finally, after about five days, Luis learned that ICE had transferred Andrés to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that cares for “unaccompanied” migrant children.
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that → learn → children
Federal law defines unaccompanied minors as kids younger than 18 with no lawful immigration status and no parent or guardian in the United States available to care for them.
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law → define → them
In the past, most unaccompanied minors in ORR custody were children who had recently crossed the US-Mexico border by themselves—not kids who arrived with a parent and had been living in the country for years.
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who → cross → years
Andrés was never unaccompanied, but ICE confusingly labeled him that way.
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ICE → label → him
As a result, Luis learned, ORR would place him in temporary foster care with another Texas family.
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ORR → learn → family
Andrés felt betrayed, as a lawyer who later took his case recalled to us
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who → betray → us
“He was saying, ‘The government lied to me.
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government → say → me
I asked them to be with my dad, and they took us to a place, and we were separated.’
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we → ask → place
Luis, stuck in detention, could not believe it.
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Luis → stick → it
“You tricked me!” he thought angrily of ICE.
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he → trick → ICE
“You kidnapped my son.”
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You → kidnap → son
If this sounds familiar, it’s because something similar happened during the first Trump administration.
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something → sound → administration
In 2018, under the so-called zero tolerance policy, immigration agents tore families apart as they crossed the US-Mexico border, detaining parents and transferring their children to ORR custody.
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they → call → custody
One of ORR’s responsibilities is to place unaccompanied kids in shelters, group homes, or foster care until they can be released to sponsors, who are often relatives.
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who → place → sponsors
Historically, these arrangements were never intended for children who arrived with parents, but Trump’s advisers wagered that separating families would deter new migrants from making the trip.
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separating → intend → trip
The zero-tolerance policy made national headlines and was denounced on both sides of the political aisle as inhumane, and a federal court eventually ruled it illegal.
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it → make → aisle
Yet now, eight years later, the Trump administration is again separating families, except this time it’s doing so more quietly, and away from the border: Federal agents have picked up hundreds of immigrant children in the interior of the country and sent them to ORR, a vast departure from prior administrations, when interior referrals to the agency were rare. Anywhere from 500 to more than 700 of these kids, according to sources familiar with the cases, had previously crossed the border alone and spent time in ORR custody, but were living with their sponsors when ICE returned them to the agency.
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ICE → separate → agency
But there’s another group of kids that has received less attention—kids like Andrés who were sent to ORR even though they were never unaccompanied.
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they → ’ → ORR
It’s unclear how many children fall into this category, because ORR doesn’t systematically track them, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ignored our questions about them.
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Department → ’ → them
But a source with knowledge of federal immigration data told us they now make up a “huge chunk” of ORR’s caseload.
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source → tell → caseload
We spoke with more than a dozen attorneys for this story who confirmed this trend, and were alarmed by it.
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who → speak → it
“It’s confusing why those kids are being deemed unaccompanied,” says Diane de Gramont, also with the National Center for Youth Law, who recently raised this concern in court.
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who → ’ → court
“We’re talking about kids who have a mom, a dad, and siblings who want them to be living with them,” says Jessica Richardson, an attorney who works with The Door, a New York nonprofit that helps detained minors.
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that → talk → minors
…and 173 more, not listed.
The Aporia
