Think Immigration: The Hidden Harms of ICE’s Treatment of Children and Youth
As part of our efforts to amplify the AILA Law Journal, Lisa Jacobs, Jessica Heldman, and Sarah Diaz put into context their article about the use of juvenile records in immigration proceedings and how using those records in the same manner as adult records is unjust and causes irreparable harm to children.
Immigration law in the United States has a striking blind spot: it fails to recognize that children are different from adults. This impacts a large number of migrant children and young adults who came to the United States as children. For example, previously unpublished data reveals that – in 2025 alone – the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has placed more than 600 children in immigration detention facilities, exceeding the total of the previous four years combined. Reporting indicates that a majority of these children were taken into ICE custody as they showed up for immigration hearings or appointments, or because adults they were with had been arrested. These children and young people will all now face the cruelty of an adult-centric immigration system, further weaponized by Trump Administration policies. These “adultified” immigration processes are not designed for children and youth, and the proceedings are particularly dangerous for children who have come into conflict with the law.
As a result of recent immigration policy changes, migrant children and youth living in the U.S. are at higher risk of coming into contact with domestic law enforcement and the juvenile justice system. If such youth are later apprehended by ICE, the immigration system inappropriately uses records generated by juvenile justice systems in harmful ways, repeatedly treating juvenile encounters with law enforcement exactly the same as those of an adult – whether in the determination of eligibility for a benefit or as a matter of discretion.
A new article in the AILA Law Journal, “No Second Chances: The Inappropriate Use of Juvenile Delinquencies in Immigration Law Adjudications” zeros in on arguments to keep juvenile records out of immigration proceedings at every level. The article, co-authored by leading experts in juvenile law, provides a roadmap for litigators, adjudicators, and policymakers seeking to ensure that immigration law aligns with the foundational principles of juvenile justice: that children and adolescents are fundamentally different from adults and must be treated differently under the law. That century-old premise has since been bolstered by a robust and ever-growing body of social science and neuroscience that confirms what every parent, teacher, aunt, uncle, babysitter, and even police officer knows: young people often get into trouble for different reasons than adults and they need developmentally appropriate responses from the adults and systems in their lives. The research also makes clear that young people have incredible capacities to learn, grow and thrive – despite minor or even serious youthful mistakes.
These realities are the foundations of the nation’s juvenile justice laws and have been codified in statute and in U.S. Supreme Court Jurisprudence, which recognizes that youth are “categorically less culpable” for their misconduct and that youthful offending must not be considered indicative of adult character and behavior. While specific statutory strategies differ from state to state, U.S. juvenile justice systems tend to focus less on the specific “deeds” of youth and more on providing support, treatment and rehabilitation for young people in conflict with the law. Most states use markedly different processes when interacting with youth and adults in conflict with the law and employ different legal terminology, distinguishing between criminal convictions and findings of delinquency, for example. Juvenile justice systems also tend to prioritize alternatives to formal adjudication when possible, and to utilize a continuum of interventions, sanctions and responses that are not available in adult criminal systems. Importantly, juvenile justice systems across the country provide for specialized confidentiality provisions for matters involving youth, often paired with enhanced expungement and / or sealing provisions.
These legal mechanisms recognize that young people are uniquely vulnerable when they are enmeshed in legal systems, that they require specialized considerations, and that the missteps of youth should not automatically limit a young person’s future outcomes. Utilizing juvenile justice records in immigration proceedings not only contravenes fundamental legal principles, statutes and caselaw underlying U.S. juvenile justice systems, but causes irreparable harm to young people, families and communities across the nation. Against the backdrop of aggressive enforcement and growing numbers of children swept into detention, recognizing and correcting the immigration system’s misuse of juvenile records is a necessary step toward confronting the broader injustices embedded in current policy.
Authored by Lisa Jacobs, Jessica Heldman, and Sarah Diaz