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BREAKING:Children, Not Criminals—Why Is Congress Treating Them Like Prisoners? The House of Representatives just passed a bill that would subject immigrant children to invasive bodily searches and keep them in detention instead of releasing them to their families. What happened next no one saw this coming… Full details ⤵️ ⤵️
BREAKING:Children, Not Criminals—Why Is Congress Treating Them Like Prisoners? The House of Representatives just passed a bill that would subject immigrant children to invasive bodily searches and keep them in detention instead of releasing them to their families. What happened next no one saw this coming…
Full details ⤵️ ⤵️
**Children, Not Criminals—Why Is Congress Treating Them Like Prisoners?**
In a move that has ignited outrage among immigrant advocates and child welfare experts, the U.S. House of Representatives has advanced legislation that critics say would dramatically expand the detention of immigrant children. The bill would allow for invasive bodily searches of minors in federal custody and prioritize detention over releasing children to parents or close family members while their immigration cases proceed.
Supporters of the measure argue it is about “security” and “uniform standards.” But opponents see something far more troubling: the normalization of treating children—many of them fleeing violence, poverty, or persecution—as if they were hardened criminals rather than vulnerable minors in need of protection.
Under existing practices, unaccompanied children are generally transferred to shelters and released to vetted family members whenever possible. The new bill, critics warn, shifts that presumption toward confinement, even when a safe family placement is available. Pediatricians and psychologists have long documented the harm prolonged detention causes children, including anxiety, depression, and lasting trauma. Adding invasive search procedures, they argue, compounds that damage and raises serious ethical and legal concerns.
What happened next, however, surprised many observers. Within hours of the vote, faith leaders, medical associations, immigration lawyers, and even some former government officials spoke out in rare unity. Protests erupted outside the Capitol. Advocacy hotlines crashed as thousands of constituents flooded congressional offices with calls demanding the bill be stopped in the Senate.
At its core, the controversy forces a stark question onto the national stage: Who are we willing to become in the name of enforcement? Children arriving at our borders are not criminals serving sentences. They are kids in crisis. How Congress chooses to treat them will say far more about our values than any talking point ever could.