Editor’s note: The Coalition on Human Needs sent this letter to all Members of the House of Representatives on March 5, 2026, and every Senate office received an updated version of this letter with 251 organizations on March 13. CHN was proud to lead this effort with First Focus Campaign for Children. You can view this letter including an updated list of all the signed organizations here.

March 5, 2026 

Dear Representative: 

We are writing as advocates for children, families, and basic human needs to urge you to ensure the well-being and safety of children through significant reforms to immigration policies and practices as you deliberate federal appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security. The decisions before you will have profound impacts on children’s health, safety, stability, access to services, and lifelong opportunity, and they demand principled action grounded in evidence and compassion. We urge you to reject status quo funding for the Homeland Security FY26 annual spending bill, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and include meaningful, enforceable safeguards that protect children and families and treat them with dignity. 

At a time when federal investment in children is declining, enforcement spending continues to expand. According to The Children’s Budget 2025 by First Focus on Children, federal support for children has fallen for the fourth consecutive year. In FY2025, just 8.57% of federal spending—$8.57 of every $100—was allocated to children, a 3.2% inflation-adjusted decrease that continues a troubling pattern of disinvestment. This retreat is especially alarming because we know investment works. In 2021, expanded supports with increased investment drove child poverty down to 5.2%, only for it to surge to 13.4% by 2024 after those policies expired. With child care strained, states cutting services, and threats to Medicaid, CHIP, and SNAP looming, millions of children’s health and stability hang in the balance. Every appropriations decision reflects priorities, and children should not bear the cost of expanded enforcement at the expense of their health and stability. 

Across the country, ICE and CBP actions have disrupted families, traumatized children, and placed young lives at risk. Detention and deportation separate children from parents and caregivers or place them in unhealthy environments, destabilizing households and causing lasting emotional and developmental harm. Since March 2025, at least 3800 children under the age of 18, including 20 infants, have been held in family detention centers.1 Even when families are not directly affected by detention or separation, the pervasive fear of targeted arrests and apprehension fuels anxiety, depression, and avoidance of schools, child care, pediatric appointments, hospitals, and other places and services that are essential for healthy child development. These conditions create unrelenting stress that can become toxic to developing brains, undermining development and future success in school. Recent reports document how current immigration operational practices inflict widespread trauma and instability on children and communities—outcomes that stand in stark contrast to America’s stated commitment to family unity and child well-being.2,3  

These harms are not abstract: documented cases show that children are being directly and profoundly impacted by immigration policies and practices. For example, a five-year-old child, Liam Ramos, was detained with his father and transported over 1,000 miles to a detention facility, disrupting his family, schooling, routines, and sense of safety. In another case, a six-month-old infant’s development was jeopardized from the stress of repeated family detentions and disruptions to caregiving. In yet another incident, a six-year-old girl was left wandering her community in New Jersey searching for her parent following an enforcement action. These episodes are not isolated anecdotes but are symptomatic of practices that extend into homes, schools, and neighborhoods, eroding children’s sense of security and their ability to learn, grow, and thrive.4  

Importantly, the harms extend beyond children themselves to parents whose physical and emotional well-being directly shapes their children’s emotional health and sense of security and stability essential to their positive development. Recent reporting has documented that pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in ICE custody have suffered miscarriages, been denied adequate medical care, or been separated from their infants due to detention — including situations where women were held despite agency policy advising against it and denied basic necessities or prenatal services, compounding trauma and poor health outcomes for both parents and their children.5,6 This underscores how ongoing tactics and practices can destabilize families at the most vulnerable moments. 

Even beyond direct involvement in ICE actions, the fear of immigration enforcement itself creates barriers to essential services. Children in mixed-status families may avoid school, healthcare, child care, or public benefit programs out of fear for their parents’ safety, leading to unmet medical needs, developmental delays, chronic stress, and educational disruptions. Educational leaders report that enforcement presence in or near school environments produces panic, disengagement, absenteeism, and emotional distress among all students. New research also shows that recent immigration policies and practices reduce test scores for both U.S.-born and foreign-born Spanish-speaking students, and particularly those who are in higher-poverty middle and high schools.7 This toxic stress, especially in early childhood, has well-documented impacts on brain development, emotional regulation, and long-term health outcomes.8 Researchers now assert that the pervasive threats and deprivation stemming from immigration policies and tactics should be incorporated into the Adverse Childhood Experiences framework as experiences that increase risks of lifelong health and mental health problems.9 

We strongly urge Congress to reject provisions that expand enforcement or detention capacity, to ensure child-centered protections, and to prioritize investments that promote children’s well-being, family stability, and equitable access to services. Protections should include: 

• Ending broad scale ICE and CBP operations in neighborhoods and community spaces where families live and gather;  

• Restoring sensitive location protections for schools, child care centers, hospitals, houses of worship, and community sites to keep these places safe and fear-free; 

• Ensuring legal representation for children in immigration proceedings and preventing unnecessary detention or deportation of parents; 

• Preserving and strengthening the Flores Settlement and other minimum child welfare standards for children and youth in custody; 

• Ending child and family detention beyond the shortest feasible timeframe, as outlined under the Flores Settlement; 

• Prohibiting the opening of new family detention centers; 

• Embedding a “best interests of the child” standard across all relevant policy frameworks; 

• Protecting pregnant and postpartum women by enforcing ICE Directive 11032.4, which prevents ICE from detaining, arresting, or taking into custody people who are pregnant, postpartum, or nursing for administrative violations of immigration laws; 

• Requiring child and adult mental health services as well as observers during monitoring visits in family detention facilities, including infant and early childhood mental health, as well as mental health services in communities when children and their families return to them;  

• Demanding congressional oversight and accountability over ICE and the Department of Homeland Security for actions that harm children;  

• And, rejecting any additional ICE or CBP funding that enables family separation, expands detention, or weakens child safeguards. 

As a nation, we should invest in children—not advance policies that destabilize and traumatize them and their families. Yet children in low-income and historically marginalized communities already face steep structural barriers to federal programs and services, and recent actions by the Department of Homeland Security only heighten fear, further limiting access to critical support at the very moment public investment is declining. 

Taken together, these trends underscore a clear imperative. Children have distinct and growing needs that demand sustained investment and intentional protections across federal policy. Upholding family unity, preventing trauma, and expanding access to life-enhancing opportunities are not aspirational ideals—they are measurable policy choices with lifelong consequences for children and the communities in which they live. 

In the end, our government and our tax dollars should never be used to inflict trauma and harm on children that will echo throughout their lifetimes. Our government should always put the best interests and well-being of children first in any policies, decisions, actions, or activities in which kids are impacted. 

Congress has a choice: fund practices that are inflicting harm on children or fund basic needs for children. Let’s choose children and their families. 

Respectfully, 

First Focus Campaign for Children and Coalition on Human Needs, along with:

National organizations:
AFT
Agape Adventist Church
Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools
American Friends Service Committee
American Medical Women’s Association
Autistic People of Color Fund
Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network
Caring Across Generations
Center for Gender & Refugee Studies
Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law
Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP)
CenterLink
Child Welfare League of America
Children’s Defense Fund
Children’s HealthWatch
Church World Service
Clearinghouse on Women’s Issues
Clinical Social Work Association
Coalition on Human Needs
Commonsense Childbirth Inc.
Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, U.S. Region
Council of Administrators of Special Education
Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund
Dominican Sisters of Peace, Ministry of Presence, Garden City, KS
Dominican Sisters of Peace, Sinsinawa, WI
Empowering Pacific Islander Communities (EPIC)
Equal Rights Advocates
Family Centered Treatment Foundation
Feminist Majority
Florida Black Women’s RoundTable
Food Research & Action Center (FRAC)
Foster Care Training Today
Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls, MN
Grand Challenges for Social Work
Granny’s Helpers
Hadassah
Head Start Community Program of Morris County, Inc.
Health Care for America Now
HealthConnect One
Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters, USA-JPIC
Hope for HIE
Humanitarian Outreach for Migrant Emotional Health (H.O.M.E.)
Humans of Earth
Hunger Free America
Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC)
Institute for Policy Studies’ Poverty Project
Institute for Policy Studies, National Priorities Project
Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)
Little Lobbyists
MomsRising
NAACP
National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd
National Association for Family Child Care
National Association of Child and Youth Care Professionals
National Association of Counsel for Children
National Association of Social Workers
National Center for Youth Law
National Council of Jewish Women
National Diaper Bank Network
National Education Association
National Organization for Women
National Parents Union
National Respite Coalition
National Women’s Law Center Action Fund
National Women’s Political Caucus
Network for Public Health Law
NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice
Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies
People Power United
People’s Action Institute
Pretrial Justice Institute
Public Advocacy for Kids (PAK)
RESULTS
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Seven Circles Foundation
Sierra Club
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Justice Team
Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate
Social Current
Society for Public Health Education
Soul Energies R&D LLC
The Advocacy Institute
The National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health/Got Transition
U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI)
UnidosUS
Union for Reform Judaism
Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice
United Church of Christ
University of Notre Dame
Women in Film
Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights
Youth Law Center

State and Local organizations:
350 Bay Area Action
AdvocacyDenver
AIDS Foundation Chicago
Al Otro Lado
Alabama Institute for Social Justice
Aldea – The People’s Justice Center
Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families
Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL)
Asylum Program of Arizona
Attorney Tashanna Hammond
Autumn West Safe Haven
Black Children’s Institute of Tennessee
Body Synergy
Boise/Ada County Homeless Coalition
Borderlands Resource Initiative
Californians for Disability Rights Inc
Catholic Community Service, Inc.
Cave Junction Farmers Market
Child Care Law center
Children’s Action Alliance
Children’s Advocates for Change
Children’s League of Massachusetts
Children’s Practice Group of Greater Boston Legal Services, Inc., on behalf of National Parents Union
Church of St. Francis Xavier of New York City
City of Wausau, Community Development
Clayton Early Learning
Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities
Colorado Coalition for the Homeless
Colorado Society for Public Health Education
Common Cause
Community Works Consulting
Corridor Community Action Network
Courage California
Dayspring Theological University
DC KinCare Alliance
Democratic Women of South Orange County
Design4Kids
Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children (DEC)
Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House
Early Childhood Investment Corporation
East Bay Sanctuary Covenant
East Boston Social Centers
El Pueblo Unido – Atlantic City
Elaine Larson Arts
End Child Poverty California
Equitas Health
Family and Children Administration
Family Focus
Filsonic Furniture
Finger Lakes Peoples Union
Florida Alliance For Retired Americans
Food for People
Glide Foundation
Harry S. Truman Democratic Club of Greater Sacramento
Hawaii Children’s Action Network Speaks!
Hood Theological Seminary, ICFSH
Idaho Hunger Relief Task Force
Illinois Child Care Bureau
Illinois Head Start Association
Illinois Partners for Human Service
Immigrant Children Advocates’ Relief Effort (ICARE)
Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef)
Indivisible East Bay
Indivisible, Georgia coalition
Indivisible, Monroe County, IL
Indivisible, Seattle, WA
Jan Perkins Law Office
JC Lactation Counseling
Kairos-Milwaukie United Church of Christ
Kids Forward
Kinlochruel, LLC
Kinnect
La Fuerza Unida, Inc.
Lafayette Urban Ministry
Las Cruces Resist
Latino Texas Policy Center
League of Women Voters of California
League of Women Voters of Florida
League of Women Voters of St. Lawrence County NYS
Legacy Seniors of Granada Hotel
Legal Key Partnership for Health and Justice
Little River United Church of Christ
Long Beach Gray Panthers
LSF Health Systems
Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area
M & M Sweet Child Care
Manatee Justice Ministry
Maryland Public Health Association
McKnight Community Solutions
Mi Casa Resource Center
Michigan League for Public Policy
Michigan’s Children
Minnesota Farmers’ Market Association
Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative
National organization for women, Seattle Chapter
Nations Law Group
Native Girl Notary Services
Nebraska Appleseed
Neighbor to Neighbor
New Jersey Association of Mental Health and Addiction Agencies, Inc. (NJAMHAA)
New Jersey Consortium for Immigrant Children
Newport County Community Mental Health Center
Oasis Legal Services
Oklahoma Birth Equity Initiative
Oklahoma Policy Institute
One Day At A Time Gift Shop
Oregon Charter Academy (ORCA)
Oregon Head Start Association
Our Children Oregon
Our Father’s Family Keeper Ministries
Our Spring Lake Store, LLC
Pam Krimsky Fine Art.
Parrott Creek Child & Family Services Inc
Pax Christi Lansing
Peace Action of Staten Island
Pennsylvania Head Start Association
Praxis Health Empowerment
Professional Staff Congress – City University of New York
Quinsigamond Village Community Center
RESULTS Iowa
Revelation Outreach Inc
Rhode Island KIDS COUNT
Rise Up WV
San Diego for Every Child
Scott County Democratic Central Committee
Serving At-risk Families Everywhere (SAFE)
Sheldon Heights CoC Food Pantry
Sisters of Charity, BVM
Sisters of St. Joseph Healthcare Foundation
Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, New Windsor, NY
Sisters of the Presentation, Dubuque, IA
St. Peter’s Church
Talking Drum Incorporated
The Adult Skills Center (TASC)
The Children’s Agenda
The Karabelle Pizzigati Initiative in Advocacy for Children, Youth and Families at University of Maryland
The Porchlight Collective SAP
The Spero Project
The URAALI Refaluwasch Association
Think Babies Michigan Coalition
Transcanwork
Trying Together
United for a New Economy
Up Valley Family Centers of Napa County
URI Feinstein Center for a Hunger Free America
Utahns Against Hunger
Voices for Children in Nebraska
Voices for Utah Children
Voices for Vermont’s Children
Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP
West Virginia Head Start Association, Inc.
Westfield Community Center
WIC Association of NYS
Wisconsin Head Start Association
Yurdin Creative & Technical
YWCA Monterey County