Chapin Hall

How Are Heightened Deportation Efforts Affecting Child Welfare Agencies?

Since early 2025, U.S. federal deportation efforts have increased significantly. When a parent is removed from the country, their children may depart with them or stay with a remaining parent, relative, or someone else. People have concerns and questions about how often these children may be entering foster care, but there has been limited information on these circumstances and how jurisdictions may be responding.

What We Did

To understand the experiences of child welfare agencies, our team spoke with leaders from 13 jurisdictions (including 5 counties or cities and 8 states) between October 2025 and May 2026. These jurisdictions are politically diverse, serve populations ranging from hundreds to thousands, and include areas with high levels of arrests.

What We Found

• Leaders were aware of few, if any, children entering foster care directly after the detention/deportation of a parent.
• Leaders varied in whether they could report the number of circumstances of children entering the system after parental deportation. Only some jurisdictions had processes to ensure information about cases flowed to leadership.
• No jurisdiction reported receiving referrals from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE’s) Enforcement and Removal Operations division or Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
• Most interviewees said their jurisdiction offers resources and support for child welfare-involved families and unaccompanied minors facing immigration issues, such as legal assistance, travel coordination and accompaniment, and international home studies.
• Most leaders believed relatives or other trusted adults are stepping in to care for children, but they did not have concrete information about this community response.
• Some leaders noted that caregivers of children affected by parental detention/deportation may face barriers to accessing public support. They emphasized the crucial role of trusted community organizations in assisting these families.

What It Means

• Jurisdictions vary in using specialized immigration support teams and processes for staff to request help with cases. Jurisdictions should evaluate their need for this support.
• Public agencies and philanthropic organizations should explore opportunities to support nongovernmental organizations that serve immigrant families needing assistance.
• When child welfare prevention services are available to children impacted by parental detention/deportation and their caregivers, providers should consider whether administrative barriers or fear of engaging may limit access.
• Jurisdictions should ensure staff are familiar with the Detained Parents Directive and ICE should adhere to its requirements.

Children do not appear to be entering foster care immediately after parental removals; however, this could become a concern if caregivers are not able to stably care for these children long term because of limited access to support. This underscores the critical role of community organizations in serving these families and the opportunity for public systems and philanthropic organizations to support that work.

These findings should also not be treated as evidence that children are in unsafe settings after parental detention or deportation. To the contrary, evidence shows that children fare better staying with kin or close family friends when they cannot remain with their parent.

Read the report