Woman Blasts Christians Over 145,000 Children Affected by ICE Detentions: “Your Morals Are Broken”

A tweet accusing Immigration and Customs Enforcement of separating more than 145,000 kids from their parents has spurred robust debate about immigration enforcement, family separation, and religious morality.

“ICE has now separated over 145,000 children from their parents. If this fact doesn’t deeply disturb you, your morals are broken, and you are certainly no fucking ‘Christian’,” says Shelby Alexandria in a tweet that included a selfie photo of herself.

The numbers were drawn from a May Brookings Institution analysis. The analysis showed that an estimated 205,000 children, including 145,000 U.S. citizen kids, have been subjected to parental deportation detention since the Trump administration started, according to the Brookings Institution. Moreover, 22,000 of those kids lost both parents to deportation, notes the study.

The study did not consider the number of children who were physically separated from their parents. The researchers used demographic data on ICE detainees booked into detention from January 1, 2025, to October 15, 2025, obtained from interior arrests and combined with American Community Survey data to determine how many detainees have children, Brookings Institution explains.

The figures include children who have been left without their parents because of parental detention in mixed-status families. The scenario is different from the case of the zero-tolerance policy at the southern border during the Trump era, when 5,500 children got separated from their families, says NationofChange.

However, the Brookings Institution believes the government’s numbers understate the problem. In September 2025, ICE reported that 18,277 detained individuals have U.S. citizen children; however, the Brookings Institution calls that figure almost certainly an undercount, says NationofChange. Since there are mandatory procedures for asking about children, in most cases they do not take place, and some detainees do not mention their children due to fear for themselves and people in their network, says Truthout with regard to the study.

A relatively small part of such children are put into custody. Only about 5%, or 1,100 children, have received the services provided by the child welfare department, whereas other kids stay with relatives or friends, or leave the country with their deported parents, says The Hill.

However, other studies estimate the figures to be smaller. At least 11,000 American children have a parent who was detained in the first seven months of the Trump administration’s second term. The numbers were based on a conservative method using government data, and ProPublica stresses that their figures are almost certainly an undercount.

The post by Shelby Alexandria that described the enforcement campaign as morally unacceptable for Christians stirred heated discussions among social media users. On the one hand, some agreed with the author; on the other hand, some criticized the selectiveness and pointed out the difficulties of tracing unaccompanied migrant kids during the Biden presidency.