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Immigrant children read and play at an aid center after being released from U.S. government detention on November 3, 2018 in McAllen, Texas.
The budget leans into cruelty toward immigrant children, both in the punishments it seeks to inflict—and in what it proposes to spend our tax dollars on.
As Congress debates the federal budget, one thing is clear: This legislation isn’t just about dollars and cents—it’s a blueprint for cruelty. The current budget proposal takes direct aim at immigrant families, and threatens to inflict lasting harm on children already subject to inhumane treatment at the hands of the U.S. government.
Advocates for children and families have raised the alarm about how the proposed cuts would gut access to healthcare and essential programs for millions of children. But what has received less public attention, and demands urgent scrutiny, is how this budget leans into cruelty toward immigrant children, both in the punishments it seeks to inflict—and in what it proposes to spend our tax dollars on.
First, the bill includes a cascade of tax and health provisions and fee requirements that will limit vital benefits and harm immigrant children and their families.
Congress is being asked to approve a spending plan that wants to use taxpayer dollars to lock up children, while stripping away the very supports that help them survive.
The budget proposal would eliminate Child Tax Credit eligibility for millions of children if neither of their parents has a Social Security number. The bill also penalizes states that fund health insurance programs for immigrants excluded from federal Medicaid. States that step up to protect immigrant children would be hit with a 10% cut to their Medicaid expansion match, punishing compassion with financial retribution.
And it doesn’t stop there. The budget levies fees on immigrants applying for humanitarian protection, impacting children applying for asylum and Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, and putting children who cannot pay at risk of detention or deportation. It also imposes thousands of dollars in fees on people seeking to sponsor unaccompanied children, creating a huge financial barrier to providing children with a family home and care while they await immigration proceedings. These fees will cause children to languish in harmful institutional settings for even longer periods of time.
At the same time, the budget allocates billions of taxpayer dollars to supercharge immigration enforcement, not to solve a crisis, but to expand it. This extreme agenda targets law-abiding immigrants who have for years lived and contributed to the quality of life in communities across this nation. It proposes huge new spending on immigrant detention facilities, with families subject to indefinite detention in direct violation of long-standing legal protections for children.
Children’s Rights knows what these detention facilities look like. As co-counsel representing children under the Flores Settlement Agreement, which has protected the rights of immigrant children detained by the U.S. government for decades, we are one of three organizations allowed to speak directly with children held in federal facilities. We’ve heard their stories firsthand, and we know that even a few days in detention can have devastating and long-lasting emotional and psychological consequences for kids.
Last week, the Flores co-counsel team filed a motion to enforce the Flores Settlement, citing heartbreaking evidence that U.S. Customs and Border Protection is detaining children for weeks in harsh, unsafe, and prison-like conditions before turning them over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where they are often detained for weeks more. This should not happen to any child.
It is shameful that, In the face of overwhelming evidence, the administration has filed a motion to terminate the Flores Settlement, alleging that it is no longer necessary. The eyewitness accounts we have heard utterly dispute this. Children and parents tell us they are being imprisoned for prolonged periods, subjected to cruelty, neglect, and conditions that are not only unlawful but deeply inhumane. They make one thing clear: The government cannot be trusted to care for immigrant children without judicial oversight.
The budget and our court battle may be on separate tracks, but they tell the same story. The government is waging a coordinated assault on immigrant children. It is not just failing to protect them—it is actively endangering them.
This is not just a legal fight. It’s a moral one. The federal budget is America’s budget, and it should reflect our values as a nation. Right now, Congress is being asked to approve a spending plan that wants to use taxpayer dollars to lock up children, while stripping away the very supports that help them survive.
We must say no. And we must do it loudly. Poll after poll shows that most Americans disapprove of the aggressive immigration tactics we are seeing. Now is the time to speak up by calling on our elected officials to demand a budget that upholds the dignity and rights of every child, regardless of where they were born.
There is still time to choose a better path—one that protects children instead of punishing them.
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As Congress debates the federal budget, one thing is clear: This legislation isn’t just about dollars and cents—it’s a blueprint for cruelty. The current budget proposal takes direct aim at immigrant families, and threatens to inflict lasting harm on children already subject to inhumane treatment at the hands of the U.S. government.
Advocates for children and families have raised the alarm about how the proposed cuts would gut access to healthcare and essential programs for millions of children. But what has received less public attention, and demands urgent scrutiny, is how this budget leans into cruelty toward immigrant children, both in the punishments it seeks to inflict—and in what it proposes to spend our tax dollars on.
First, the bill includes a cascade of tax and health provisions and fee requirements that will limit vital benefits and harm immigrant children and their families.
Congress is being asked to approve a spending plan that wants to use taxpayer dollars to lock up children, while stripping away the very supports that help them survive.
The budget proposal would eliminate Child Tax Credit eligibility for millions of children if neither of their parents has a Social Security number. The bill also penalizes states that fund health insurance programs for immigrants excluded from federal Medicaid. States that step up to protect immigrant children would be hit with a 10% cut to their Medicaid expansion match, punishing compassion with financial retribution.
And it doesn’t stop there. The budget levies fees on immigrants applying for humanitarian protection, impacting children applying for asylum and Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, and putting children who cannot pay at risk of detention or deportation. It also imposes thousands of dollars in fees on people seeking to sponsor unaccompanied children, creating a huge financial barrier to providing children with a family home and care while they await immigration proceedings. These fees will cause children to languish in harmful institutional settings for even longer periods of time.
At the same time, the budget allocates billions of taxpayer dollars to supercharge immigration enforcement, not to solve a crisis, but to expand it. This extreme agenda targets law-abiding immigrants who have for years lived and contributed to the quality of life in communities across this nation. It proposes huge new spending on immigrant detention facilities, with families subject to indefinite detention in direct violation of long-standing legal protections for children.
Children’s Rights knows what these detention facilities look like. As co-counsel representing children under the Flores Settlement Agreement, which has protected the rights of immigrant children detained by the U.S. government for decades, we are one of three organizations allowed to speak directly with children held in federal facilities. We’ve heard their stories firsthand, and we know that even a few days in detention can have devastating and long-lasting emotional and psychological consequences for kids.
Last week, the Flores co-counsel team filed a motion to enforce the Flores Settlement, citing heartbreaking evidence that U.S. Customs and Border Protection is detaining children for weeks in harsh, unsafe, and prison-like conditions before turning them over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where they are often detained for weeks more. This should not happen to any child.
It is shameful that, In the face of overwhelming evidence, the administration has filed a motion to terminate the Flores Settlement, alleging that it is no longer necessary. The eyewitness accounts we have heard utterly dispute this. Children and parents tell us they are being imprisoned for prolonged periods, subjected to cruelty, neglect, and conditions that are not only unlawful but deeply inhumane. They make one thing clear: The government cannot be trusted to care for immigrant children without judicial oversight.
The budget and our court battle may be on separate tracks, but they tell the same story. The government is waging a coordinated assault on immigrant children. It is not just failing to protect them—it is actively endangering them.
This is not just a legal fight. It’s a moral one. The federal budget is America’s budget, and it should reflect our values as a nation. Right now, Congress is being asked to approve a spending plan that wants to use taxpayer dollars to lock up children, while stripping away the very supports that help them survive.
We must say no. And we must do it loudly. Poll after poll shows that most Americans disapprove of the aggressive immigration tactics we are seeing. Now is the time to speak up by calling on our elected officials to demand a budget that upholds the dignity and rights of every child, regardless of where they were born.
There is still time to choose a better path—one that protects children instead of punishing them.
As Congress debates the federal budget, one thing is clear: This legislation isn’t just about dollars and cents—it’s a blueprint for cruelty. The current budget proposal takes direct aim at immigrant families, and threatens to inflict lasting harm on children already subject to inhumane treatment at the hands of the U.S. government.
Advocates for children and families have raised the alarm about how the proposed cuts would gut access to healthcare and essential programs for millions of children. But what has received less public attention, and demands urgent scrutiny, is how this budget leans into cruelty toward immigrant children, both in the punishments it seeks to inflict—and in what it proposes to spend our tax dollars on.
First, the bill includes a cascade of tax and health provisions and fee requirements that will limit vital benefits and harm immigrant children and their families.
Congress is being asked to approve a spending plan that wants to use taxpayer dollars to lock up children, while stripping away the very supports that help them survive.
The budget proposal would eliminate Child Tax Credit eligibility for millions of children if neither of their parents has a Social Security number. The bill also penalizes states that fund health insurance programs for immigrants excluded from federal Medicaid. States that step up to protect immigrant children would be hit with a 10% cut to their Medicaid expansion match, punishing compassion with financial retribution.
And it doesn’t stop there. The budget levies fees on immigrants applying for humanitarian protection, impacting children applying for asylum and Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, and putting children who cannot pay at risk of detention or deportation. It also imposes thousands of dollars in fees on people seeking to sponsor unaccompanied children, creating a huge financial barrier to providing children with a family home and care while they await immigration proceedings. These fees will cause children to languish in harmful institutional settings for even longer periods of time.
At the same time, the budget allocates billions of taxpayer dollars to supercharge immigration enforcement, not to solve a crisis, but to expand it. This extreme agenda targets law-abiding immigrants who have for years lived and contributed to the quality of life in communities across this nation. It proposes huge new spending on immigrant detention facilities, with families subject to indefinite detention in direct violation of long-standing legal protections for children.
Children’s Rights knows what these detention facilities look like. As co-counsel representing children under the Flores Settlement Agreement, which has protected the rights of immigrant children detained by the U.S. government for decades, we are one of three organizations allowed to speak directly with children held in federal facilities. We’ve heard their stories firsthand, and we know that even a few days in detention can have devastating and long-lasting emotional and psychological consequences for kids.
Last week, the Flores co-counsel team filed a motion to enforce the Flores Settlement, citing heartbreaking evidence that U.S. Customs and Border Protection is detaining children for weeks in harsh, unsafe, and prison-like conditions before turning them over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where they are often detained for weeks more. This should not happen to any child.
It is shameful that, In the face of overwhelming evidence, the administration has filed a motion to terminate the Flores Settlement, alleging that it is no longer necessary. The eyewitness accounts we have heard utterly dispute this. Children and parents tell us they are being imprisoned for prolonged periods, subjected to cruelty, neglect, and conditions that are not only unlawful but deeply inhumane. They make one thing clear: The government cannot be trusted to care for immigrant children without judicial oversight.
The budget and our court battle may be on separate tracks, but they tell the same story. The government is waging a coordinated assault on immigrant children. It is not just failing to protect them—it is actively endangering them.
This is not just a legal fight. It’s a moral one. The federal budget is America’s budget, and it should reflect our values as a nation. Right now, Congress is being asked to approve a spending plan that wants to use taxpayer dollars to lock up children, while stripping away the very supports that help them survive.
We must say no. And we must do it loudly. Poll after poll shows that most Americans disapprove of the aggressive immigration tactics we are seeing. Now is the time to speak up by calling on our elected officials to demand a budget that upholds the dignity and rights of every child, regardless of where they were born.
There is still time to choose a better path—one that protects children instead of punishing them.
