ICE is recruiting cops to track down kids

(Salon) Early in Donald Trump’s second administration, officers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement began making unannounced visits to the schools and homes of unaccompanied immigrant minors, meaning children who don’t have a parent or guardian in the country. Officials branded these visits as “wellness checks,” ostensibly aimed at ensuring that the children in question did not fall victim to human trafficking and were keeping up with their obligations for their immigration cases. Other agencies were also enlisted to make such visits, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. But the true purpose of these visits has been called into question by reports that, in some cases, they have led directly to deportations.

Newly released documents suggest that the Trump administration has turned this program, ostensibly intended to ensure the well-being of immigrant kids who don’t live with their parents, into another means for ICE and similar agencies to track down children and their sponsors (most often family members) who may be eligible for deportation.

These documents, provided to Salon by American Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group, show that the Trump administration is actively seeking to recruit local law enforcement to conduct these checks. Communications between the federal government and the sheriff’s office in one rural Minnesota county indicate that checks are used to collect information on both immigrant minors and their sponsors in the U.S. This information can then be shared across multiple government agencies.

Chioma Chukwu, the executive director of American Oversight, told Salon, “This administration has demonstrated a callous disregard for the well-being of children.”

Chukwu continued, “We’ve seen deeply troubling incidents — including reports that immigration agents used a five-year-old child as a prop to facilitate an enforcement operation. We’ve also seen children separated from their families and detained in conditions that have long drawn criticism from medical experts, advocates, and courts.” .................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/04/10/ice-is-recruiting-cops-to-track-down-kids/