After three months in immigration detention, 1,500 miles (2,400km) away from her 13-month-old daughter, LT was running out of options.
Her baby, who was allergic to formula and had other food sensitivities, had been vomiting constantly and needed breastmilk. But the government refused to release LT – an asylum seeker from Haiti – on bond. So, the family’s pediatrician petitioned the government to allow her to pump and mail her breastmilk from the Dilley detention center in Texas to her baby in Florida. That request was denied.
Desperate, LT asked whether her child could be brought into the detention center to be with her. The government denied that, too, she said, on the grounds that the child, who is a US citizen, couldn’t be kept at an immigration detention center.
“I’m terrified of losing my baby,” she said.
The US government has targeted thousands of parents like LT for deportation since Donald Trump took office in January 2025. A Guardian analysis of government records has found that, during the first seven months of his presidency, the administration arrested the parents of at least 27,000 children. During this period in 2025, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was deporting about twice as many parents each month compared with 2024.
