Don’t Look Away Katie Britt: The Laken Riley Act’s devastating impact on immigrant children in 2025

On X, Senator Katie Britt tweeted, “It was an honor to lead the Laken Riley Act in the Senate and join President Trump almost one year ago as he signed his first bill as our 47th President. I always fight for families and the safety and security of our communities.” She was the lead Republican sponsor of it in the Senate and undertook a relentless pressure campaign to get it passed with bipartisan support.

Sarah Mehta, senior border policy counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, stated this upon passage of the Laken Riley Act: “This is an extreme and reactive bill that will authorize the largest expansion of mandatory detention we have seen in decades, sweeping in children, DREAMers, parents of U.S. citizen children, and other longtime members of their communities who even ICE thinks should not be detained.”

What Senator Britt should consider a year later are its devastating effects on immigrant children. In the article entitled, “On Senate Floor, Senator Murray Lays Out How Laken Riley Act Would Throw Our Immigration System Into Chaos, Cost Billions, and Divert Resources From True Threats,” Democratic Senator Patricia Murray, an advocate for humane immigration reform, warned, “So let me just underscore that, because it’s important: this bill has no exemption for kids, no cut-off age, and no process to keep it in line with our general child welfare laws. As written, this bill appears so broad a child could be locked up and put on a plane without their parents.”

She is also ignoring child welfare advocacy agencies. Mina Dixon Davis, a senior policy analyst at the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, wrote this in regard to the passage of the act: “Research shows that children experience immediate and long-term trauma due to detention and family separation. The American Academy of Pediatrics has repeatedly stated that any form of detention is harmful for children, let alone mandatory detention without any basis in a charge or conviction of a crime. Its substance is sweeping and dangerous and would strain law enforcement resources by requiring the detention of a huge number of people.”

I doubt she read the findings of Senator John Ossoff’s official investigation dated July 30, 2025, entitled “The Abuse of Pregnant Women and Children in U.S. Immigration Detention.”

Listed abuses from credible sources are deaths in custody, physical and sexual abuse, mistreatment of pregnant women, mistreatment of children, inadequate medical care, overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions, inadequate food or water, exposure to extreme temperatures, denial of access to attorneys, and family separations. For example, one pregnant woman in DHS custody bled for days before being taken to a hospital. She miscarried there. Attorneys reported cases of pregnant women waiting weeks to have medical exams, just for their appointments to be canceled. One woman was told, “Just drink water,” instead of being offered an exam.

There are also many reports of children being denied medical care. There was a 10-year-old U.S. citizen who was detained with her family. She was denied follow-up care after brain surgery. She faced brain swelling, speech, and mobility issues. A mother was told, “Just give the girl a cracker,” when she repeatedly asked for treatment for her daughter with severe medical issues. A four-year-old recovering from metastatic brain cancer was deported without getting to see a doctor. Senator Ossoff also did a second report later in 2025 documenting more abuses.

Here’s another reprehensible fact that Senator Britt is ignoring. In July 2025, the Department of Homeland Security suddenly closed three of its internal oversight departments that monitor human rights abuses within these detention facilities. These include the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) Ombudsman Office, and the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO). As the number of detainees held in these facilities surges, the ability of the detainees to address abuse disappears. There is a lawsuit against this entitled, “RFK Human Rights v. Department of Homeland Security: Ensuring Oversight of Immigration Enforcement.”

Unlike what happens on the outside, we can’t witness the abuse that goes on inside these facilities, but it is well documented, as in the Ossoff report. We must not look away and demand the same from our political leaders. The Laken Riley Act is sweeping legislation that degrades due process and contributes to human rights violations. This will only get worse with overcrowding of facilities. The private prison industry will make billions constructing new detention centers to keep up with the administration’s draconian quotas for detainees. The legislation was bipartisan, and there is plenty of blame to go around.

Yes, I single out Senator Britt. She campaigned on protecting Alabama children and families. She represents me because I am her constituent. I want her to read Senator Ossoff’s report and discuss it with him. I want her to go to the facilities, talk to the detainees, and question DHS as to why their departments that monitor abuses have been shut down. Senator Britt speaks out about keeping Americans safe. That needs to extend to all people, undocumented or not. Republicans talk about detaining and deporting “the worst of the worst.” This phrase can be applied to our leaders who look away and just don’t care.

Senator Britt wielded an incredible amount of power by being instrumental in the passage of the Laken Riley Act. She is an influencer. It is her moral obligation to understand the consequences and pivot by advocating for dramatic change. Imagine the impact she could have if she broke with the administration on immigration and acknowledged that all children must be protected. The abuse of children in U.S. detention centers should not be ignored. It is a horrific reality, along with what we see with our own eyes of the abuse and murderous actions of ICE agents run amok in Minneapolis streets.

Amy Fahimi

Amy Fahimi is a Huntsville, AL resident.

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• Katie Britt