As deportations accelerate, hundreds of Venezuelan children remain in the U.S. without their parents — sparking diplomatic tensions and urgent calls for reunification.
Across the country, a growing number of Venezuelan children whose parents were deported back to their home country have been left behind in the United States, in the care of relatives, neighbors, babysitters — whomever parents could identify.
Venezuelan officials claim that 150 Venezuelan children, from newborns to teenagers, have wound up separated from their parents as President Trump’s deportation campaign has accelerated. Most of the children were born in Venezuela, and some in Colombia, but some of the youngest, including months-old babies, were born in the United States, complicating efforts to repatriate them.
While there is no tally kept by U.S. officials or advocacy groups, Venezuelan officials shared a list of children they said had been separated, and The New York Times interviewed the parents and relatives of more than a dozen children, corroborating their accounts with court documents, police records and immigration case files.
The Venezuelan government’s roster includes children whose parents were deported to Venezuela as well as children whose parents remain locked up in the United States.
In interviews, many of the parents said they had chosen to be deported without their children, a painful decision that they made to avoid months in detention. They hoped, they said, that returning to their homeland would expedite a reunion with their children.
Others asserted that they were pressured or misled by U.S. Immigration officials into boarding deportation flights without their children, some of whom have ended up in foster care.
The Trump administration has said that it does not separate families, a divisive practice that roiled the president’s first term. During the summer, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency issued updated guidelines that require its officers to give immigrants who are in the United States illegally the choice to be deported with their children. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE, defended the Trump administration’s policies but did not address Venezuela’s claims or say how many children have remained in the United States.
“ICE does not separate families,” the representative, Tricia McLaughlin, said. “Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children, or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates.”
While some families have been deported together, many mothers and fathers have been landing in Venezuela without their children, setting off a diplomatic scramble inside the Venezuelan government to track down and repatriate the children.
Other Latin American countries — including Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico — appear to be grappling with similar separations, sometimes involving U.S.-born children, according to media reports. But no country has been as vocal about the separations as Venezuela has.
