Daily Voice
By Chris Spiker From Daily Voice
Children with immigrant parents are losing crucial access to medical care amid the Trump administration's widespread crackdown on immigration, according to health experts.
Physicians for Human Rights and the Migrant Clinicians Network released their survey of 691 health care employees who work with immigrant families in 30 states on Wednesday, Nov. 19. The nonprofits found that 84% of medical workers reported significant or moderate declines in visits since President Donald Trump returned to office in January.
More than one in four (26%) reported immigration enforcement has directly affected patient care. Seven percent even said that agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Patrol have been inside their health care facilities.
The report said that kids are arriving at emergency rooms without parents and facing delays in lifesaving care.
"We are witnessing the creation of a generation with preventable trauma, delayed diagnoses, foregone treatments, and compromised development," said Dr. Katherine Peeler, a pediatrician and medical advisor for Physicians for Human Rights. "What we are documenting is systemic, orchestrated harm to immigrants, and therefore their children – harm that is entirely preventable. Parents are making impossible choices: declining surgery for their children, delaying emergency care, and refusing specialty referrals because they have calculated that the risks of deportation or family separation exceed the medical necessity."
Protesters opposed to President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown at a demonstration in Chicago on September 30, 2025.
Providers described young children in tremendous fear of being separated from their families. An Oregon community health worker in the survey reported some kids are "constantly crying" during checkups.
More than two in five (43%) clinicians also said that preventive services have been affected by Trump's immigration policies, along with 36% reporting chronic disease management disruptions and 28% noting issues with treating mental health conditions.
"Parents of our pediatric patients [have been] detained by ICE, which has led to a great deal of emotional distress in the remaining adult and their children," a Massachusetts doctor said.
The survey also showed that more children of immigrants are avoiding outdoor activities and becoming socially isolated.
"I have pediatric patients that are flagging in the obese range for weight, and when we talk about playing in parks and getting other forms of exercise, the parents note that they are not leaving their apartments for fear of encountering ICE," another Massachusetts doctor said. "Their children suffer the double trauma of fear of family separation and immigration enforcement, as well as lacking a safe place to play and exercise, and other healthy outlets for children."
Clinicians also reported parents delaying vital specialty care for their children due to their concerns about ICE activity.
"I have had multiple parents decline visits with specialists, including delaying surgery, because of the fear of immigration enforcement in the destination city or on the way there," a California doctor said.
The Department of Homeland Security said in late October that more than 527,000 people have been deported and 1.6 million have "voluntarily self-deported" since Trump returned to the White House.
"This is just the beginning," said DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin. "President Trump and [DHS] Secretary [Kristi] Noem have jump-started an agency that was hamstrung and barred from doing its job for the last four years. In the face of a historic number of injunctions from activist judges and threats to law enforcement, DHS, ICE, and CBP have not just closed the border, but made historic strides to carry out President Trump's promise of arresting and deporting illegal aliens who have invaded our country."
The Trump administration has claimed to focus on the "worst of the worst" criminals. Critics say ICE agents are racially profiling people of any legal status and targeting people without criminal records.
The Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, found that 73% of people detained by ICE since Wednesday, Oct. 1, had no criminal convictions. Only 5% of ICE detainees were previously convicted of a violent crime.
Doctors warned that deportation fears have spread beyond undocumented migrants and could hurt children's health care in entire communities.
"Our clinical network is sounding the alarm: fear is keeping migrant and immigrant children from critical care to stay safe and healthy," said Dr. Laszlo Madaras, chief medical officer of the Migrant Clinicians Network. "Health care is a human right. When fear blocks care for some, it harms all of us."
Physicians for Human Rights urged Trump to stop ICE and Border Patrol operations near medical buildings.
"In light of these mounting health harms, the Trump administration should end actions that directly or indirectly curtail access to critical health care services for children and families," Dr. Peeler said. "This includes codifying the 'Sensitive Locations' policy and ceasing all immigration enforcement at health care facilities. The administration should also end ICE data-sharing with Medicaid and align broader US immigration policies and practices with international human rights standards."
The clinicians were surveyed between March and August.
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