Donald Trump’s fascist regime has returned to power, unleashing a cascade of anti-immigrant policies. Trump campaigned on a platform of violently racist rhetoric, and he has promised to inflict extreme harm on both newcomers and long-time U.S. residents alike through bans, deportations, and incarceration.
While we prepare ourselves for the coming onslaught of attacks on all marginalized groups, we should not forget Trump’s most vulnerable targets, many of whom live among us in Chicago: migrant children.
Here in Chicago, the nonprofit Heartland Human Care Services or HHCS (formerly part of Heartland Alliance), holds hundreds of children captive in buildings across the city. These facilities, which the nonprofit calls “shelters,” are better described as detention centers for kids apprehended at the border. In the past, the organization even detained some children who were separated from their families under Trump’s first administration. HHCS took roughly $45 million from the Department of Health and Human Services for its immigration “services” in 2024, a whopping 74% of its overall federal funding.
According to former employees and residents, these facilities act as holding centers where immigrant children are kept separated from their loved ones while their guardians are investigated by HHCS employees. Children are not allowed to leave the centers without permission, and their parents cannot access them without going through a “vetting” process that is designed to gather information on the parents’ legal status, which is often shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to former employees.
In the words of prison abolitionist Rose Braz,
“Kinder, gentler cages are still cages.”
Former Heartland employees have said children in the detention centers are treated like prisoners with strict schedules and limited freedom, are prevented from seeing loved ones for months or even years, and may be turned over to ICE authorities when they turn 18 and age out of the nonprofit’s custody. Employees also reported that parents had to pay to see their children when reunification was possible. A ProPublica investigation in 2019 found that children in the system had sexual contact with one another due to lax supervision and inadequate staffing, and a Department of Family and Support Services investigation found that a staff member had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old child in one of Heartland’s detention centers in Des Plaines, which has since closed. ProPublica also found that some children in the centers experienced suicidal ideation and others ran away out of desperation.
HHCS leadership claims that its so-called “shelters” are a better alternative to other detention systems for children, and that it protects kids who would otherwise be vulnerable to human trafficking. This rhetoric simply normalizes the U.S. government’s brutal system of immigrant policing, which tears apart families and communities and criminalizes people for fleeing conditions that the U.S. helped to create through its imperialist policies.
In the words of prison abolitionist Rose Braz, “Kinder, gentler cages are still cages.”
Children should not be kept in cages. Parents should not have to submit to surveillance and investigation to be given access to their own children. The entire U.S. immigration system is violent and should be abolished.
Former HHCS employees who have worked in the centers have spoken out against the nonprofit’s treatment of immigrant children, parents, and its own workers. Immigrant rights groups, including Únete La Villita and the Free Heartland Kids group started by CDSA members, have spoken out and protested against these horrors. These efforts paid off — in 2019, in response to a ProPublica’s reporting on the centers and organizers’ appeals to public opinion, Heartland Alliance closed four of its detention centers. Still, more work must be done to free the children in HHCS’s remaining facilities.
The CDSA’s new, improved immigrants’ rights committee faces huge challenges in the years to come.
Throughout his campaign, Trump and his allies have promised to ramp up violent systems that criminalize, imprison, and expel immigrants — especially Black and brown working-class people. Trump has said he will use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport “suspected gang members” without due process, and use federal troops and local police to arrest and deport immigrants. He has declared he will end protections such as Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and reinstate his ban on migrants from Muslim-majority nations. On his first day in office, he signed an executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship, which would prevent the U.S.-born children of undocumented migrants from becoming citizens from birth. His plans promise to dramatically increase immigration policing and incarceration across the country.
We cannot allow the onslaught of attacks on immigrants to overwhelm us and make us feel helpless. We can all make a difference right here at home.
While the border may feel far away to some of us here in Chicago, the effects of immigration policy will be felt by many of our neighbors. Trump’s chosen immigration advisor even claimed Trump’s quest to deport and incarcerate immigrants will “start right here in Chicago,” and recent news reports confirm that the incoming administration plans to conduct massive ICE raids in Chicago shortly after inauguration day. We must keep our focus sharp, work together with other migrants’ rights groups, and remember that the most vulnerable among us need our attention and deserve our unwavering support.
If you want to get involved with the fight to end child migrant detention in Chicago and defend migrants across the U.S., connect with the CDSA’s new Immigrant Rights Working Group. The next meeting will be held February 6 at CDSA headquarters at 3411 W Diversey Ave #7 Chicago, IL 60647. You do not need to be a dues-paying DSA member to join — all are welcome!
You can also join in the PO Box Collective’s ongoing letter-writing campaign from now until February 13 by writing Valentine’s Day cards to show support to kids in the HHCS detention center in Rogers Park. Click here for more details on this action.
If you are a current or former HHCS employee who would like to share your story or join the campaign to close the child detention centers, please email freeheartlandkids@gmail.com to connect with our group. There are several current and former HHCS employees in the group, and leadership will work with you to protect your identity if you are afraid of retaliation.
