Children Separated Again as Senate Votes on ICE Funding

An Associated Press investigation published Thursday reveals that the Trump administration has separated dozens of children from their parents for a second time, despite a landmark 2023 legal settlement designed to protect families torn apart by the first administration’s “zero tolerance” policy. The revelations come as the Senate votes 53-46 to begin debate on a roughly $70 billion bill to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol through the end of Trump’s term.

The AP investigation, led by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Garance Burke and Sonia Pérez D., documented cases of families who were separated at the border during the 2017-2018 family separation policy and then re-separated during Trump’s second term through interior enforcement actions. Parents with legal protections under the 2023 Ms. L v. ICE class-action settlement have been detained during workplace raids or traffic stops, then deported, leaving their children behind.

The Re-separation Crisis

Under the 2023 settlement, over 11,800 parents, children, and impacted family members received special legal protections, pathways toward asylum, access to attorneys, work permits, and support services. The settlement also banned most family separations until December 2031. However, as AP News reported, these protections have not prevented the government from detaining and deporting class members.

One case detailed by AP involves 11-year-old Ederson Galicia Alva, who was taken from his mother’s arms at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018 when he was just 3 years old. After years of therapy and legal battles, he was reunited with his mother, Mirsy Maricela Alva López. Then, in June 2025, federal agents stopped his mother en route to a landscaping job near Mar-a-Lago, detained her, and deported her to Guatemala — separating Ederson from her for a second time.

“I felt the very same thing I went through the first time. I was living it all over again,” Alva López told AP.

Sinri Baltazar, a Honduran mother from the Garifuna community, was separated from her daughter in 2018 and deported in 2025 despite her protected status. Emails obtained by AP show the government deported protected class members even after the ACLU notified officials they were legally off limits. In one instance, ACLU attorney Natalie Behr wrote an urgent email in December 2025 about a protected relative in ICE custody — the individual was deported by December 26.

Lee Gelernt, the ACLU’s lead counsel in the Ms. L lawsuit, told AP: “Not only has the government refused to acknowledge the horror of the initial separations during Trump I, but it is now detaining and deporting these same families. These children have suffered enough without re-traumatizing them.”

The Department of Homeland Security has defended its actions. Lauren Bis, acting assistant secretary and DHS spokesperson, said: “DHS complies with all court orders, even as radical NGOs shop for the most favorable forum and activist judges seek to thwart our operations.” She added: “Every removal of an illegal alien helps restore order and reinforce the rule of law.”

Senate Funding Battle

As the AP investigation was published, the Senate voted 53-46 on Wednesday to begin debate on a roughly $70 billion bill to fund ICE and Border Patrol through January 2029, as AP News also reported. The legislation was delayed for weeks after the Justice Department announced a $1.776 billion settlement fund resolving Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over leaked tax returns — a fund that could have provided payouts to Jan. 6 defendants and other Trump allies.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told lawmakers the fund was dropped, but Trump has continued to defend it. “I love it. I think it’s so important,” Trump said when asked about the settlement fund. When pressed on whether it was dead or on hold, he replied: “I’d have to ask the lawyers, I don’t know.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said: “Right now, the goal is to get the base bill across the finish line.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., warned: “It is only a matter of time before Blanche and Trump go back on their word.”

Also stripped from the bill was $1 billion in security funding for the White House, including for Trump’s new ballroom, after bipartisan opposition. NPR reported that the ballroom security proposal had triggered a major congressional standoff, with Democrats threatening to force Republicans into politically difficult votes during the amendment process.

Analysis and Implications

The two developments are deeply interconnected. The Senate immigration funding debate unfolds against the backdrop of the AP’s revelations about re-separations, and Democrats are expected to use the amendment process to force votes on the settlement fund and immigration enforcement practices.

Key legal protections under the Ms. L settlement — including asylum application windows and legal services contracts — are set to expire in late 2026, creating a looming crisis for thousands of families. The settlement’s protections were never encoded by an act of Congress, making them vulnerable to administrative changes under a second Trump term.

According to the Brookings Institution, parents of tens of thousands of children have been detained under the second Trump administration’s aggressive interior enforcement sweeps. Unlike the first term’s border separations, today’s re-separations often occur far from the border, during routine enforcement actions that sweep up parents who had been living and working in U.S. communities.

What’s Next

The Senate debate on the ICE funding bill is expected to continue through the week, with a series of amendment votes — known as a “vote-a-rama” — that could test Republican unity. Trump’s continued defense of the settlement fund has exposed growing friction between the White House and Senate Republicans, with Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and John Cornyn (R-TX) losing reelection bids after Trump endorsed their primary opponents.

Meanwhile, families like Ederson’s face ongoing uncertainty. Ederson and his mother were allowed to return to Florida in late May under a federal judge’s order — but were granted only two weeks of humanitarian parole. The clock is ticking for thousands of families whose legal protections are set to expire, and for the children who have now been separated from their parents not once, but twice.