Children pay the price for cruel immigration policies
September 10, 2025
By Lauren Necochea Reader Contributor
At 1 a.m. on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, 76 unaccompanied children were awakened without warning and loaded onto planes bound for Guatemala. No explanation. No due process. Just terrified kids taken in the dead of night.
Why the haste? Why the secrecy? Why inflict such trauma on children?
By all appearances, the Trump regime wanted to carry out unlawful cruelty under the cover of darkness. They had similar plans for more than 600 other children, regardless of whether they had a safe home waiting on the other end. A late-night court ruling stopped this round of deportations, but the cruelty did not stop. Children are not just collateral damage. Increasingly, they are the target.
In Idaho, we believe in protecting children and keeping families together. Trump’s mass deportations and abuses of power betray those values. He is working to dismantle safeguards that keep schools, churches and hospitals off-limits to immigration raids.
Parents are being torn from their children over minor infractions, leaving kids behind with relatives or, in some cases, the foster system. Even children themselves are being pursued. The youngest people arrested in Idaho this year were a 6-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy, both from Peru.
Lauren Necochea. File photo.
In Los Angeles, armed federal agents even cleared a public park where children were playing. These betrayals leave lasting scars on families and communities. This is government overreach at its worst.
Idaho’s own leaders are cheering it on. Gov. Brad Little ordered the Idaho National Guard to assist ICE, using our state’s resources to rip parents from their kids and traumatize entire communities.
Meanwhile, Trump’s promise to focus on dangerous criminals has completely collapsed. ICE is not prioritizing violent offenders. It is targeting ordinary families to boost arrest numbers while real threats slip through the cracks.
We need an immigration system that is fair, humane and secure — one that keeps families together and protects children. That means providing a legal process for people to apply for status, not midnight raids carried out by masked men breaking windows and terrorizing neighborhoods. It means restoring order through transparency and accountability, not chaos and fear.
Undocumented neighbors and coworkers are part of our everyday lives. They are members of our churches, they care for our kids and they help sustain our farms. I refuse to believe the people of this state want cruelty inflicted on children and families who are helping Idaho thrive.
Republican politicians have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Trump, cheering on policies that rip families apart and harm children. Idahoans must reject this agenda of fear and division by electing leaders who will protect children, keep families together and build a humane, orderly immigration system that reflects our values.
Lauren Necochea is chair of the Idaho Democratic Party and a former District 19 legislator. Necochea spent a decade leading nonprofit programs dedicated to research and advocacy in tax policy, health care and children’s issues.
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