Tue, April 28, 2026 at 3:24 PM UTC
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The Trump administration is rushing deportation proceedings aimed at migrant children, CNN reported Tuesday.
Children as young as four have been repeatedly forced to appear in court, sometimes without legal representation, the outlet reported. Hundreds of cases have been moved up with little advanced notice, sometimes by weeks or months at a time. Some children wet their pants under the intense pressure of a court appearance, Emily Norman of the group Kids in Need of Defense said.
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The administration has framed the effort in terms of “return[ing] trafficked children to their homes and families as expeditiously as possible,” as one unnamed official said.
But in practice, the rapid-fire pace of deportation proceedings puts kids at risk of losing out on protections, including what’s known as “special immigrant juvenile status,” which creates a pathway to permanent residency for kids who’ve been abused, abandoned or neglected.
As HuffPost previouslyreported, in President Donald Trump’s second term, children are spending months longer than normal in government immigration custody, even when they have qualified family members waiting to take them in. Many children in government custody were previously living with parents or other family members who were subsequently arrested in the course of their own immigration cases, and young people who turn 18 while in government custody face the risk of being suddenly transferred to adult detention. The administration has also attacked funding for immigrant youths’ legal representation.
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