As immigration authorities carry out what President Donald Trump has promised will be the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history, several states are passing laws to keep children out of foster care when their detained parents have no family or friends available to take temporary custody of them.
The federal government doesn’t track how many children have entered foster care because of immigration enforcement actions, leaving it unclear how often it happens. In Oregon, as of February two children had been placed in foster care after being separated from their parents in immigration detention cases, according to Jake Sunderland, a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Human Services.
“Before fall 2025, this simply had never happened before,” Sunderland said. As of mid-February, nearly 70,000 people were being held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The record 73,000 people in detention in January represented an 84% increase compared with one year before. According to reporting from ProPublica , parents of 11,000 children who are U.S.
citizens were detained from the beginning of Trump’s term through August.
The motivation is described in the context of a broad immigration enforcement push described as the largest mass deportation operation in U.S.
history, with an associated rise in held individuals and a consequential risk of family separation.
The federal government’s lack of centralized tracking for children entering foster care due to immigration enforcement actions is noted, leaving the frequency of such separations unclear.
This point is anchored by a state agency spokesperson, indicating a nascent policy shift at the state level to avert foster placement where possible.
Maryland, New York, Washington, D.C., and Virginia previously amended laws to permit temporary parental rights for immigration-enforcement-related circumstances during the first term of the Trump administration.
The current surge in enforcement has prompted renewed state-level responses, with New Jersey considering legislation to expand guardian nomination grounds to include separation due to federal immigration enforcement.
California’s statute, referred to as the Family Preparedness Plan Act, enables parents to nominate guardians and share custodial rights rather than having parental rights suspended while detained.
Reunification rights are retained upon release and potential reunion with children.
In California, the law emphasizes preparedness planning as a pathway to avoiding formal foster care placement by enabling the child welfare agency to begin placement with a designated guardian without initiating a full foster care process, assuming a valid preparedness plan exists.
Community legal organizations note ongoing concerns about immigrant parents’ willingness to complete government forms due to fears about data access by immigration authorities.
Legal advocates highlight the risk that custody decisions made under state guardianship may complicate later reunification prospects.
citizen children living with at least one parent without lawful status.
Brookings Institution figures are cited to indicate there are several million such children, with a substantial subset where both parents lack legal status.
These demographics frame the potential scale and significance of policy changes at the state level.
The article notes the suspension of a large portion of the population in detention as a marker of enforcement intensity, with a record detainee count observed in January and a substantial year-over-year increase.
Stakeholders question whether agency practices align with formal directives for family involvement in related judicial processes.
However, precise national counts of children entering foster care due to immigration enforcement actions are not available from federal tracking, limiting definitive assessment of incidence.
Attorneys and service providers note that some immigrant families may be reluctant to engage with government forms, citing concerns about data exposure to immigration authorities.
This highlights a tension between protective policy design and user acceptance.
The Alliance for Children’s Rights identifies legal barriers that can impede reunification, particularly when a parent’s participation in required proceedings is constrained by detention or deportation.
The dynamics of policy adoption reflect both a humanitarian impulse to reduce foster care placements and a recognition of practical barriers to guardianship arrangements and reunification.
Stakeholders express views that the reported counts likely underestimate the magnitude, though these estimates are not operationally defined within the source material.
As such, the piece notes observed instances in Oregon and cites broader state actions, but does not provide a uniform national tally or a standardized methodology for counting foster care entries linked to immigration enforcement.
It explicitly states that not all information is reported or readily accessible, and some claims rely on journalistic or advocacy sources rather than formal datasets.