DHS letter disclosed ICE detained 265, deported 132 abuse-survivor immigrant youths after ending SIJS deferred-action protections

On March 17, 2026, NBC News reported that it had exclusively obtained a Department of Homeland Security letter to Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., disclosing that from January 20 to December 22, 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained 265 and deported 132 young immigrants holding Special Immigrant Juvenile Status — a green-card pathway Congress created in 1990 for minors who suffered abuse, abandonment, or neglect in their home countries. Since 2022, SIJS recipients had generally been protected from deportation and permitted to work legally under a "deferred action" policy while a green-card backlog cleared; the administration ended that deferred-action protection in June 2025, a change currently subject to ongoing litigation. DHS told NBC News that SIJS status "does NOT confer lawful status" and, without providing evidence, said the program "is infected with fraud and abuses." DHS did not disclose whether any of the 132 people deported had faced criminal charges or convictions; the agency said they were accused of immigration violations such as being in the country without admission or lacking visas.

In one case cited by NBC News, a 16-year-old identified as Elias came to the United States alone in 2023 after suffering severe physical and emotional abuse and neglect from his mother, and was granted SIJS status in July 2024. In April 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services terminated his deferred action "without providing any advance notice or an opportunity to respond, and without any explanation," according to court documents. The following month his father was briefly detained by ICE, and in the early hours of May 21, 2025, ICE deported Elias to Guatemala without a removal order, after holding him in a hotel room in Alexandria, Louisiana for roughly 12 hours. Attorneys were, as of the March 2026 reporting, still fighting for his return.

Rachel Davidson, director of the End SIJS Backlog Coalition, said the detentions and deportations were "tearing them away from the stability that they're in, the lives that they're building on their pathway to permanent protection." Emma Israel, senior policy analyst at Kids in Need of Defense, said the figures DHS disclosed were "much higher than we expected."