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children's rights
DC Police Collaboration With Occupying Feds Perpetuates Family Separation
Increased criminalization and deportations exacerbate family separation by creating the conditions used to justify state intervention and forcible removal.
Nov 22, 2025
Washington, DC is already the most policed city in the US, through resourcing policing more than any other major US city to the dozens of local and federal law enforcement agencies that residents encounter in our daily lives. These conditions and increased criminalization contribute to the stopping, arrests, sentencing, incarceration, and deportation of disproportionately Black and brown youth and adults. These circumstances contribute to forcible family separation. As a former foster youth I’ve seen how this exacerbates harms rather than pathways to safety for too many families.
Since August, additional presence of federal law enforcement and the National Guard have blanketed the city. Though Mayor Muriel Bowser claims that the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) is not cooperating with immigration enforcement, numerous local accounts show MPD and federal agencies working alongside each other on. Local legal service and mutual aid organizations have declared MPD’s collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) a violation of the Sanctuary Values Amendment Act (which DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson revealed Mayor Bowser secretly tried to repeal), calling the decision by DC Police Chief Pamela Smith a “betrayal of the city’s residents.”
The current conditions that DC residents are living under have rippling effects that will be felt long after the current occupation, including exacerbating family separation through deportation, incarceration of youth and adults, and forced removal under the guise of care.
Like the presence of federal agencies, Child Protective Services (CPS) are framed as protectors. But what DC families have felt is not protected, but increasingly unsafe conditions. What DC families have experienced is not security or sanctuary, but the very real consequences from a manufactured crisis that justifies the conditions for family separation in the state’s eye.
As DC residents, we must ask: What does true family safety look like for us?
Since the “surge” of the presence of federal agencies, community documentation and data project Courtwatch DC has reported a sharp increase in people detained who appear during arraignment court proceedings, which have gone as late as 1:00 am the following day. When a parent or guardian is arrested or incarcerated, even if for only one night, CPS often intervenes by displacing their children into the foster system, a pipeline that predominantly impacts youth of color. The increased criminalization of DC residents puts families at risk of separation due to parental incarceration.
ICE agencies are employing historic tactics of family separation as CPS continues a legacy of using immigration policies to separate families. When parents or guardians are detained and disappeared by ICE, children may be left with no caregivers and become vulnerable to CPS intervention. The justification of forcible removal of children while parents are indefinitely detained is a state-created problem, unnecessarily perpetuating family separation.
Residents have additionally reported that parents of immigrant students are afraid to send their children to school for fear of kidnapping by ICE. Making the choice to keep immigrant children away from school may be a double-edged sword, where the absence that is meant to protect them may be met by punitive attendance policies, putting both students and their parents at risk of intervention from CPS and law enforcement.
With or without youth programs, young people should be able to exist safely outside, in public, in their own city. Punitive tactics that directly target DC youth exacerbate the impacts of local law enforcement cooperation with federal agencies. Criminalizing existing as a young person in public, Mayor Bowser has continued to implement and threaten to implement youth curfew zones which target areas Black youth choose to spend time together in public.
When youth are criminalized and subsequently arrested, this may be considered a form of child endangerment or neglect—a justification for forcible removal of children from family care. While the city’s Black and brown youth are funneled into foster, jail, and prison pipelines, their Black and brown parents are blamed for the removal of their own children, justifying the expansion of state intervention and family separation.
One’s home, from the living room, neighborhood, to the city, should feel safe—like a sanctuary. When families are separated, missingness is a constant reminder that we live in unsafe conditions. As DC residents, we must ask: What does true family safety look like for us? Residents have been clear that they recognize that the federal “surge” is not about crime or safety, but about control, extraction, and repression of the most vulnerable. As DC residents, we must make this demand: If DC’s lawmakers care about the security and wellness of families, they must end the cooperation of MPD with federal agencies.
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Trump's Data Deletions Will Make It Harder to See How His Policies Harm Children
Without this data, the impacts of manifest Trump administration policies on vulnerable children are hidden from view.
Nov 19, 2025
On Thursday, the federal government is expected to release jobs data that was not available during the 44 days of the shutdown. As an advocate and expert on the economic security of women and families, I’m happy this data will be updated. But I’ve been thinking about other important federal data that the Trump administration eliminated, related to children’s health and well-being, which doesn’t seem likely to be reinstated.
For example, the US Department of Agriculture announced in September that it will be discontinuing the Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement (CPS-FSS) and the accompanying Household Food Security report. The annual Household Food Security report shows how many children and families across the country are struggling to obtain enough healthy food. We know that Black and brown children are at disproportionate risk of poverty and food hardship, and actions by the Trump administration—including cuts to food aid intended for food banks earlier in the spring, the refusal to pay full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits during the shutdown, and the historic cuts to SNAP made by the budget reconciliation bill in July ($287 billion over the next 10 years)—can only be expected to make it worse. But we will no longer have the data to confirm those expected increases in food insecurity.
Here’s another example: The Division of Reproductive Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) monitors pregnancy risk, and maintains a dataset that shows disparities in maternal and infant health. Unfortunately, earlier this year, the Department of Government Efficiency cuts slashed the staff in the office responsible for that data. (What’s more, there is now a banner on the web page that states in part, “This page does not reflect reality and therefore the [Trump] Administration and [the US Department of Health and Human Services] reject it,” which kind of undermines confidence.) Instead of addressing the crisis of Black women’s maternal health, we are erasing evidence of it. This is likewise problematic since the budget bill also made trillion-dollar cuts to healthcare.
And critical data besides the Department of Labor’s Employment Situation Summary, such as the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, was suspended during the shutdown—making it harder for us to know how Black and brown children are doing. (The Census Bureau’s website, incidentally, says this data will be released “as soon as possible.”)
By getting rid of federal data about Black and brown children, women, and families, this administration is making it impossible to see the harm they are wreaking—harm to a generation, harm that will have lifelong effects.
The lack of this data makes it harder and harder for us to see how some kids, especially kids of color, are doing—whether they are hungry, whether they are healthy, much less if they are in trouble. Without this data, moreover, the impacts of these and manifest other Trump administration policies on vulnerable children are hidden from view.
To be sure, this data is only part of the Trump administration’s efforts to make Black and brown children—and their parents—invisible. The federal government has used President Donald Trump’s “anti-DEI” executive order to eviscerate programs like Head Start and rewrite history. The pictures of workers on the Department of Labor’s website are now all white men. Immigrant children and families are literally disappearing from their homes, from their jobs, and from their schools into detention centers. Why should we pay attention when the data showing ongoing racial disparities in hunger or health outcomes disappears—or fight to reinstate it?
By getting rid of federal data about Black and brown children, women, and families, this administration is making it impossible to see the harm they are wreaking—harm to a generation, harm that will have lifelong effects. All of us, parents, families, and communities, need that data back because we can’t help heal that harm, until we know where our kids hurt.
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Halloween in the Age of Extermination: When Horror Comes Free in Gaza
Everything sold in the US—fear, death, darkness, and mass destruction—is handed to Palestinian children freely, but with real blood, real tears, and real destruction.
Oct 24, 2025
While walking through an American shopping mall, I was struck by many Halloween sections: plastic skulls, hanging ghosts, mock gravestones, jack-o’-lanterns with terrifying faces, and zombie costumes for children. Everything was crafted with care—for fun. Even private gardens and doorways were adorned with these symbols of fear. But the real shock came as I entered the halls of an international cybersecurity and technology conference. Some companies had installed dancing skeletons, singing skulls, and smoke-spewing props to attract visitors to their booths.
When I asked about it, they replied: “It’s October. People are getting ready for Halloween—with all its spooky decorations and traditions.”
Yet amid this polished spectacle, I couldn’t help but think of the children in Gaza. There, no costume is needed to experience horror. Everything sold here—fear, death, darkness, and mass destruction—is handed to them freely, but with real blood, real tears, and real destruction.
Halloween: From Ritual Death to Commercial Spectacle
Halloween originated in Europe from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people believed spirits returned to Earth at the end of harvest. Over time, it evolved into a global commercial event, with families spending over $10 billion annually on decorations, costumes, and candy.
On this day:Jack-o’-lanterns glow with grotesque faces.
Skulls hang from doors.
Children dress as the dead or the undead.
The blood is real.
The skulls are not plastic.
And horror is not celebrated—it is survived.
Gaza: Horror Without Celebration
It is a cruel irony that the final week of October—when Halloween is celebrated—is also United Nations Disarmament Week (24-30 October), a time meant to promote peace. Yet since October 2023, more than 68,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including thousands of children. Over 170,000 have been injured, and nearly 2 million displaced. Hundreds have died from hunger and malnutrition, including more than 100 children.
These children, supposedly protected by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, found no shield from death or fear.
They do not ask for candy—they search for their families and friends, if they are still alive. Moreover, they search for water, food, medicine, and survival.
On Halloween, children fear the dark.
In Gaza, children live in darkness.
On Halloween, skulls are sold.
In Gaza, skulls are pulled from the rubble.
From Horror to Justice and Mercy
Where is the justice the world so proudly proclaims in its forums and conferences?
Where is the voice of international humanitarian law, created to protect civilians in war?
Where is the echo of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which promised dignity and equality for all?
What if the billions spent on Halloween were redirected to aid children in Gaza—and everywhere?
What if we replaced manufactured horror with real joy?
What if this occasion became a moment of global solidarity?
Instead of celebrating death, let us learn to end it.
Instead of decorating our homes with skulls, let us rebuild the homes that were destroyed.
Instead of fearing ghosts, let us stand with those who have lost their loved ones.
A Human Wish
I wish Halloween—this year and every year—could become a celebration of mercy and love, not death and fear.
That jack-o’-lanterns would glow with messages of solidarity, not monstrous grins.
That our doors, gardens, and conferences would display the faces of children who lost their families and schools—not plastic skulls.
I wish we could redefine fear as a gateway to compassion,
And redefine celebration as a call for justice and human rights.
Conclusion: Halloween as a Mirror of Conscience
Halloween is not a holiday that must be canceled—but one that must be understood.
In a world where images of death are consumed as entertainment, we must restore humanity to the victims.
In a time when homes are adorned with skulls, perhaps we should adorn our hearts with mercy.
As Mother Teresa once said, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
Children in Gaza do not need masks.
They need justice and a global conscience that does not turn away—and does not disguise itself.
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