A child crying behind a chain-link fence is not a border problem.
A toddler struggling to breathe after exposure to tear gas is not a policy success.
And a preschooler detained as he returned home is a moral failure.
The United States is once again invoking child protection to justify immigration policies that inflict profound harm on children. Family separation, prolonged detention and forced placements are framed as enforcement necessities. But this framing distorts the very origins of child safety itself.
When Eleanor Roosevelt helped shape the modern human rights framework after World War II, she elevated children as rights-holders, not collateral damage of state power. Her advocacy influenced the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which asserted a principle that still matters today: governments must protect children from harm inflicted by institutions.
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Child safety was never meant to mean compliance, deterrence or control. It meant protection from trauma — especially trauma inflicted by the state.
Yet today, the term “safety” is used to justify harm. In Minneapolis in January 2026, a family with six young children — including an infant — reported that federal agents deployed tear gas in such a way that the gas flooded their SUV, leaving multiple children requiring hospital treatment and a 6-month-old revived with CPR after losing consciousness. This occurred amid an immigration enforcement surge, and the family insists their children were innocent bystanders caught in an overly aggressive operation.
In the very same region, a 5-year-old child returning from preschool was taken into immigration custody alongside his father, an incident that has sparked public outrage, national debate, and legal challenges. Critics — including school officials and community members — say the boy’s detention was emblematic of a system that prioritizes enforcement over child welfare.
Courtesy of Channing L. Collins
Channing L. Collins
Whether the intent was to “protect” children or enforce the law, the effect remains the same:
Children are being exposed to trauma, fear
and prolonged institutionalization.
As someone who has spent years working within child welfare systems, I recognize the pattern too well. Agencies often invoke “best interests” while prioritizing risk avoidance, public optics and procedural compliance over actual child well-being. In child welfare, we have learned — often through hardship and tragedy — that removing a child without adequate planning, support and oversight creates trauma that can last a lifetime.
Immigration enforcement is repeating these mistakes in real time.
Immigration enforcement does not have to place children in harm’s way. Child welfare systems have spent decades developing safeguards designed to reduce trauma when government intervention is unavoidable. Those lessons should apply here as well.
First, federal agencies should establish clear protocols prohibiting the use of aggressive enforcement tactics in situations where children are present. When families are involved, enforcement actions should prioritize de-escalation and coordination with child welfare professionals trained in trauma-informed practice.
Second, policymakers should require transparency and oversight whenever children are affected by immigration enforcement. Data on family separations, child detentions and incidents involving force should be publicly reported so that harm cannot be dismissed as an unfortunate but invisible byproduct of enforcement.
Third, Congress and federal agencies should work with child development experts, educators and child welfare leaders to develop enforcement guidelines that recognize children not as leverage in legal processes, but as individuals whose well-being must remain a primary consideration.
These steps would not eliminate immigration enforcement, but they would align enforcement practices with the same child protection principles that guide domestic child welfare systems across the United States.
Eleanor Roosevelt warned against the erosion of principle. She understood that human rights are tested not in rhetoric, but in how governments treat the most vulnerable when fear and politics are at their peak. Her life’s work reflected a conviction that children should never bear the cost of political expediency. The United States does not need to choose between border management and child protection. But it must choose whether child safety remains a moral commitment — or merely a convenient justification. Reclaiming the original meaning of child protection requires courage: to center children’s developmental needs, to reject harm disguised as order and to remember that child safety was never meant to look like this.
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Dr. Channing Collins is a child welfare and policy executive with a decade of leadership experience in Indiana and Illinois. She holds a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice (Law & Public Policy), a master’s degree in dispute resolution from Pepperdine University and is pursuing a master’s degree in legal studies at the University of Arizona. She is the author of a 12-point child welfare reform blueprint focused on safety, equity and workforce stability.
