ICE is Coming for the Children!

The purpose of this article is to inform the public that the abduction of a six-year-old by ICE on Wednesday, November 26, 2025, was not something out of the ordinary. This is part of ICE's protocol and something that they will be ramping up. On Wednesday, November 26, a Chinese father, Fei, and his six-year-old son, Yuanxin, were separated when the father went for his immigration check-in at 26 Federal Plaza. As of today, Fei, the child's father, has not been told where his son is. https://www.cbsnews.comst/newyor...

A mother and her seven-year-old daughter were detained over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in Winooski, Vermont. The mother and the child are being held in detention in Texas. https://www.wcax.com/video/202...

The American Medical Association in June 2018 formerly opposed the separation of children at the border from their parents/caregivers, stating it “will do great harm” to children and could “create negative health impacts that will last an individual’s entire lifespan.” https://www.ama-assn.org/publi...

Whether it is at the border or within our municipalities, I, as a minister and someone trained in early childhood trauma, understand that a child abruptly separated from their caregiver and placed in a prison situation will very likely suffer the effects of trauma both emotionally and physically. As a person of faith and good conscience, I know this is horribly wrong and unnecessarily cruel.

As mentioned at the opening of this article, ICE will be ramping up their operations in capturing children by opening a national call center seeking to track down unaccompanied immigrant children in March, which will be fully operational in June 2026. https://abcnews.go.com/US/ice-... They are expecting people to call in and to turn their backs on these children as if they weren't human. This is too deplorable to even imagine.

How can any society of good moral conscience even consider tracking down children, ripping them away from their caregivers, their schools, their friends in order to place them in prisons, and then shipping them out? Many of these children have only known the U.S. as their home. The prison in Texas that in July of this year housed 600 children with their families is privately owned and thereby gaining a profit from the incarceration of these children and their families. With many of those children having been in detention longer than the 20 days permitted by court order.

We do not know where six-year-old Yuanxin is or how he is being treated. This is sickening to even think of. We need to demand to know where he is, and how he is being treated, and why he is not being entrusted to someone his father trusts.

Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff and 13 Senate colleagues have been seeking access to the detention centers, which he states DHS continues to illegally block them from doing. https://www.cbsnews.com/atlant...

I am going to ask ICE and the DHS to be caring and compassionate to any children in your custody as if they were your own, and to cease and desist from continuing in this inhumane practice. Because they are just children, and whatever you do to hurt these children, either physically or emotionally, will stay with you for the rest of your life. You yourselves have to live with the trauma you receive when you inflict trauma on another. Justice demands that you leave the children alone, and more importantly, your Creator demands it.

I ask my neighbors to tell your friends and family what you have read and to spread this Word, since it is much harder to do wrong when a light is shining on it. Call your representatives and tell them to demand that this cruelty end, because it is happening on their watch!

Consider supporting the NY4ALL act by prohibiting state and local resources from being diverted to federal authorities. https://www.nyic.org/our-work/...

About the author: Raquel Irizarry has an MSSW from Columbia School of Social Work and a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary. She is also a lay minister with the United Church of Christ.