The Upended Lives of Detained Children

Five-year-old Liam Ramos was heading home from preschool when he was sent to a Texas family detention facility with his father. He is one of many small children whose lives have been upended by immigration enforcement.

A judge ordered his return home; however, he is only one of many children detained. Reporters Anna Flagg and Shannon Heffernan of The Marshall Project write that more than 3800 children under age 18, including 20 infants, have been booked into detention in the past year. Over 1300 of them were held in detention for longer than 20 days, despite the Flores Settlement of 1997, which considered longer stays excessive for children. (Flagg and Heffernan, 2026).

We’ve recognized for two hundred years, when the New York Children’s Aid Society and the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children were established, that children are not just early versions of adults; they need to be protected. We’ve learned a great deal more about child development since then. We know that the early years are critical for building the foundations of our brain architecture and the person we will become. The frightening experience of detention or witnessing the forced removal of parents during these early years holds danger for the children and their families.

Children in detention are confined to small, crowded areas with no schooling, no space to play, and nothing to play with. Play is not just recreation for children; it is the arena and the vehicle of growth and development. School and play are where children learn academically and socially. Detained children have been removed from all that is familiar; instead, they spend long days with parents and strangers who, like them, are fearful and uncertain about their futures.

If a child in detention is already suffering from physical or mental health problems or traumatized by their immigration experiences, those difficulties will remain or worsen. Untreated mental health disorders in childhood and adolescence lead to a high risk of poor outcomes in later mental health, physical health, and academic success. Mental distress in detained children includes high rates of PTSD, depression, and anxiety, with physical symptoms like sleep difficulties, headaches, and enuresis (Priestley, Cherian, and colleagues, 2025).

I interviewed 29 men and women who had been incarcerated for crimes they committed as teenagers for my book, Before Their Crimes: What We’re Misunderstanding about Childhood Trauma, Youth Crime, and the Path to Healing. Childhood was shaped by traumatic experiences—separation, violence, loss, and neglect. They taught me how these experiences lived within them, leaving wounds and leading them to harm others and themselves.