Distraught young girls cling to their father Luis, a migrant from Ecuador, as he is detained by ICE after his immigration court hearing in New York NY on August 26, 2025. Traumatized children are caught in the crossfire of US President Trump’s controversial mass deportation effort resulting in emotional family separations.

His wife Cocha and their three children, ages 7, 13 and 15 were inconsolable with despair. ‘It was very traumatic for me and my children,’ she said. ‘They took their father away.’ They live in the Bronx and will struggle without the breadwinner of the family. They say he has no criminal record. 'I want the government to be a little more human,' she stated.

After an arduous journey seeking asylum and the American dream, some react with anguish and tears, others walk quietly on their final steps to a new destiny at the Jacob Javits Federal Building.

There is a vast political divide in America. Some protest, decrying a lack of due process and a slippery slide into fascism. Others applaud.

And daily, detentions continue.