Stephen Miller is leading an unprecedented and intense White House drive across a host of government departments to accelerate the removal of undocumented immigrant children from the US, using tactics that critics say are cruel and racist and, in some cases, flout federal law, the Guardian has learned.
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Guardian → lead → law
As deputy chief of staff at the White House, focused on immigration policy, Miller is seen as the mastermind and enforcer behind Donald Trump’s hardline anti-immigration agenda.
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Miller → focus → agenda
He is directing a whole-of-government approach that has been ramping up throughout Trump’s second term and is targeting a vulnerable population of undocumented children.
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that → direct → children
Many abruptly find themselves denied access to legal immigration pathways in the US, with their applications fast-tracked and then rejected before being forced out of the country.
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applications → find → country
Almost 200,000 children have been ordered removed from the US by immigration judges since Trump returned to the White House, a doubling of such court orders since January 2025, according to analysis of data from the Department of Justice’s executive office for immigration review (EOIR) conducted by the California-based advocacy Mobile Pathways and shared with the Guardian.
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Trump → order → Guardian
The advocacy group has focused its numbers on children appearing in immigration court, regardless of whether they arrived in the US alone or with family, and believes the total to be an undercount.
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total → focus → family
Miller has harnessed personnel and power for his task from at least five cabinet-level government departments, as described to the Guardian by several sources briefed on various initiatives, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
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many → harness → retaliation
The departments include Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the care of migrant children who are in the country without a parent or guardian; the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) are based; and the Department of Justice (DoJ), which houses the immigration courts – with the state department and the Department of Defense playing more subsidiary roles.
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department → include → roles
Miller frequently confers with subordinates, daily at times, pressing them to maximize removals of immigrant children from the US, according to a number of sources familiar with the White House plans.
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Miller → confer → plans
“The folks that have to do the implementation are told, ‘These instructions came directly from the White House,’ or ‘These instructions came directly from Stephen Miller,’ as a way of conveying, you know, the importance of implementing them in a timely fashion and doing it in the way that they were instructed to do it,” one source said.
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source → have → it
Sources warned of the White House pushing each department to boost efforts individually and by working together in new ways to speed up and expand the deportation of undocumented children – especially by dismantling inter-agency communication safeguards designed to protect children, and hurrying them in vast numbers, without lawyers, in front of asylum officers and immigration judges who are either inclined or are under pressure to take a hard line and get them out of the US.
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who → warn → US
All departments involved, and the White House, were sent questions and asked for comment.
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departments → involve → comment
The White House did not deny that Miller is orchestrating a multi-agency effort to speed up the removal of undocumented children but claimed the effort was not new.
However, the White House and some other agencies that responded framed their endeavors as an anti-trafficking initiative instead of a means to enforcement.
“
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that → deny → enforcement
The Department of Homeland Security, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the Homeland Security Council are working to locate and rescue these children.
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Department → work → children
We are ensuring these children are reunited with their parents and families in their home countries,” said White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis.
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Bis → ensure → countries
The Homeland Security Council is a body which, under Trump, now answers directly to him within the executive office of the president of the United States and is led by Miller.
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which → answer → Miller
But there is no certainty that deported young people end up reunited with family and safe in their home countries, as many of them left in the first place because of threats to their wellbeing, including from their own family, or in order to reunite with parents in the US.
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many → be → US
One source said: “This administration has shown time and again that it has no plan for children other than to disrupt their lives and endanger them …
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it → say → them
they have no credibility to claim that they are acting with children’s safety as their priority.”
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they → have → priority
Claire Trickler-McNulty, an immigration policy fellow at Hyphen, a nonprofit intermediary focused on racial equity, said: “A facade of trafficking is sort of a convenient, feel-good cover that has nothing to do with trafficking and everything to do with reducing the program [of federal care for undocumented children], getting rid of services, getting rid of things they don’t like, and then removing kids.”
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they → focus → kids
Another source said of the Trump administration: “They are weaponizing that narrative [trafficking] because it makes them out to be the good guys, and everything else makes it really clear that they’re not.”
Critics point out that while there are some genuine instances of exploitation within the US that were exposed during the Biden administration, including by the New York Times, the Trump administration and and other rightwing politicians and commentators are using extreme, and relatively rare, examples to justify their drastic intervention.
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administration → say → intervention
The sweeping inter-agency effort has also left more than 1,800 undocumented immigrant children stuck in the custody of federal health officials after often having previously experienced abuse, neglect, abandonment, trafficking or other harm in their countries of origin or on the way to the US.
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effort → leave → US
Sources believe many of those officials are collaborating with immigration enforcers while sharing children’s confidential files in an unparalleled and legally dubious dismantling of bureaucratic safety firewalls.
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many → believe → firewalls
One consequence of this strand of the anti-immigration crackdown is the sharp acceleration in the DoJ’s immigration court orders to remove children from the US issued under the second Trump administration.
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consequence → remove → administration
This includes a rapid increase over this spring and summer.
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This → include → spring
Removal orders rose from 7,366 a month in January 2025 to 16,200 in June, 16,750 in July and 14,744 in August, according to Mobile Pathways’ research.
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orders → rise → research
Of the more than 200,000 children in total that have been ordered removed under the second Trump administration, 70% were under the age of 13.
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% → order → 13
The percentage of hearings ending in a removal order also more than doubled over the 20 months.
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percentage → end → months
A lot of it is [already] happening,” Trickler-McNulty said.
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McNulty → happen → it
She is concerned by the administration gutting legal services and due process for children, closing down higher quality facilities, and having ICE officials take on senior roles in immigrant child welfare at HHS’s office of refugee resettlement (ORR).
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officials → concern → resettlement
“Stephen Miller is incredibly involved in the whole immigration side, he has his daily calls, he reaches down into the agencies,” she said.
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she → have → agencies
Many unaccompanied children are facing the prospect of a forced return to dangerous situations in their countries of origin, particularly in Central America, including Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, or even places as unstable as Afghanistan.
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children → face → Afghanistan
Many have relatives in the US whom they could live with, who are vetted by the government and are known as sponsors.
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who → have → sponsors
But the second Trump administration has severely restricted this from happening, either through new bureaucratic methods that keep children in custody until they can be deported, or by making prospective sponsors too scared of ICE to come forward.
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sponsors → restrict → ICE
Adults and families embroiled in the immigration system are subject to potential detention by DHS, while unaccompanied children are supposed to be quickly transferred from that department’s agencies into the custody of ORR.
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children → embroil → ORR
This divide is by congressional design, in recognition that children in the country alone should not rely for care on the same agency that is trying to deport them, experts said.
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experts → rely → them
Yet as in other policy areas, this White House is prepared to break norms.
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House → break → norms
“The Trump administration has sacrificed every element of ORR’s child welfare mission on the altar of higher deportation numbers,” US senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, told the Guardian.
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Wyden → sacrifice → Guardian
“Instead of protecting kids from human trafficking or helping them reunite with family, Trump and officials at HHS and DHS are violating children’s rights [and] flouting federal law to hit quotas and satisfy their ideological crusade against immigrants.
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Trump → protect → immigrants
ORR is responsible for providing the children with a safe place to live while ensuring they have access to legal information and thoroughly vetting their potential sponsors, usually family members, who apply for their release – serving a child welfare role that has historically been separate and apart from the nation’s immigration enforcement arm.
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that → provide → arm
…and 55 more, not listed.
The Aporia
