UKHIA, BANGLADESH: The lost Rohingya boy made the journey from Myanmar alone, following strangers from other villages across rivers and jungle until they reached Bangladesh, where he had no family and no idea where to go.
“Some women in the group asked, ‘Where are your parents?’ I said I didn’t know where they were,” said Abdul Aziz, a 10-year-old whose name has been changed to protect his identity.
“A woman said, ‘We’ll look after you like our own child, come along’. After that I went with them.”
More than 1,100 Rohingya children fleeing violence in western Myanmar have arrived alone in Bangladesh since August 25, according to the latest UNICEF figures.
These solo children are at risk of sexual abuse, human trafficking and psychological trauma, the UN children’s agency said.
Many have seen family members brutally killed in village massacres in Rakhine state, where the Myanmar army and Buddhist mobs have been accused of crimes described by the UN rights chief as “ethnic cleansing.”
Others narrowly escaped with their own lives — some children arriving in Bangladesh bear shrapnel and bullet wounds.
The number of children who crossed into Bangladesh alone, or were split up from family along the way is expected to climb as more cases are discovered.
More than half of the 370,000 Rohingya Muslims who have made it to Bangladesh since August 25 are minors, according to UN estimates.
A sample of 128,000 new arrivals conducted in early September across five different camps, found 60 percent were children, including 12,000 under one year of age.
This presents a needle in a haystack scenario for child protection officers trying to find unaccompanied minors in sprawling refugee camps, where toddlers roam naked, children sleep outdoors and infants play alone in filthy water.
“This is a big concern. These children need extra support and help being reunited with family members,” Save the Children’s humanitarian expert George Graham said in a statement.
“At first they don’t talk, don’t eat, don’t play. They just sit still, staring a lot,” Moazzem Hossain, a project manager with Bangladeshi charity BRAC told AFP at a ‘child-friendly space’ run in partnership with UNICEF at Kutupalong refugee camp.
There are 41 of these safe zones across Bangladesh’s ever-expanding network of refugee camps.
Every day children, some carrying younger siblings, flock to the simple wooden huts for activities like singing, playing with toys and blocks and skipping ropes.
It is a welcome distraction from the misery outside, where monsoon rain turns the camp into a quagmire and exhausted refugees compete for dwindling food and space.
But playtime also allows staff to register details about a child’s background, monitor newcomers and keep an eye out for the tell-tale signs of a child on their own.
One such youngster was 12-year-old Mohammad Ramiz, who found himself alone after fleeing his village and tagged along with a group of adults.
“There was a lot of violence going on, so I crossed the river with others,” said Ramiz, not his real name.
“I ate leaves from the tree, and drank water to survive.”
There are fears the vulnerable minors could be exploited if left unsupervised in the camps, UNICEF Geneva spokesman Christophe Boulierac told AFP.
Girls are particularly at risk of being lured into child marriages, or trafficked to red-light districts in big cities where they are forced into prostitution and abused, he added.
But the facilities for refugee children are vastly overstretched.
Over just two days, 2,000 children came through a single ‘safe space’ in Kutupalong, little larger than a classroom with just a few staff on hand.
Thirty-five unaccompanied minors were identified over that period, Boulierac said, but more resources were needed to ensure others did not slip through the cracks.
“The faster we act, the more chance we have of finding their family,” he told AFP.
“The most important thing is to protect them because unaccompanied children, separated children, are particularly vulnerable and in danger.”
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Hundreds of Rohingya children arrive in Bangladesh alone
Hundreds of Rohingya children arrive in Bangladesh alone
Trump set to expand immigration crackdown in 2026 despite brewing backlash
- Trump plans to increase workplace raids despite political risks
- ICE and Border Patrol to receive $170 billion funding boost
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump is preparing for a more aggressive immigration crackdown in 2026 with billions in new funding, including by raiding more workplaces — even as backlash builds ahead of next year’s midterm elections. Trump has already surged immigration agents into major US cities, where they swept through neighborhoods and clashed with residents. While federal agents this year conducted some high-profile raids on businesses, they largely avoided raiding farms, factories and other businesses that are economically important but known to employ immigrants without legal status. ICE and Border Patrol will get $170 billion in additional funds through September 2029 — a huge surge of funding over their existing annual budgets of about $19 billion after the Republican-controlled Congress passed a massive spending package in July. Administration officials say they plan to hire thousands more agents, open new detention centers, pick up more immigrants in local jails and partner with outside companies to track down people without legal status.
The expanded deportation plans come despite growing signs of political backlash ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Miami, one of the cities most affected by Trump’s crackdown because of its large immigrant population, elected its first Democratic mayor in nearly three decades last week in what the mayor-elect said was, in part, a reaction to the president. Other local elections and polling have suggested rising concern among voters wary of aggressive immigration tactics. “People are beginning to see this not as an immigration question anymore as much as it is a violation of rights, a violation of due process and militarizing neighborhoods extraconstitutionally,” said Mike Madrid, a moderate Republican political strategist. “There is no question that is a problem for the president and Republicans.” Trump’s overall approval rating on immigration policy fell from 50 percent in March, before he launched crackdowns in several major US cities, to 41 percent in mid-December, for what had been his strongest issue. Rising public unease has focused on masked federal agents using aggressive tactics such as deploying tear gas in residential neighborhoods and detaining US citizens.
’NUMBERS WILL EXPLODE’
In addition to expanding enforcement actions, Trump has stripped hundreds of thousands of Haitian, Venezuelan and Afghan immigrants of temporary legal status, expanding the pool of people who could be deported as the president promises to remove 1 million immigrants each year – a goal he almost certainly will miss this year. So far, some 622,000 immigrants have been deported since Trump took office in January.
White House border czar Tom Homan told Reuters Trump had delivered on his promise of a historic deportation operation and removing criminals while shutting down illegal immigration across the US-Mexico border. Homan said the number of arrests will increase sharply as ICE hires more officers and expands detention capacity with the new funding.
“I think you’re going to see the numbers explode greatly next year,” Homan said.
Homan said the plans “absolutely” include more enforcement actions at workplaces.
Sarah Pierce, director of social policy at the center-left group Third Way, said US businesses have been reluctant to push back on Trump’s immigration crackdown in the past year but could be prompted to speak up if the focus turns to employers.
Pierce said it will be interesting to see “whether or not businesses finally stand up to this administration.”
Trump, a Republican, recaptured the White House promising record levels of deportations, saying it was needed after years of high levels of illegal immigration under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. He kicked off a campaign that dispatched federal agents to US cities in search of possible immigration offenders, sparking protests and lawsuits over racial profiling and violent tactics.
Some businesses shut down to avoid raids or because of a lack of customers. Parents vulnerable to arrest kept their children home from school or had neighbors walk them. Some US citizens started carrying passports. Despite the focus on criminals in its public statements, government data shows that the Trump administration has been arresting more people who have not been charged with any crimes beyond their alleged immigration violations than previous administrations.
Some 41 percent of the roughly 54,000 people arrested by ICE and detained by late November had no criminal record beyond a suspected immigration violation, agency figures show. In the first few weeks in January, before Trump took office, just 6 percent of those arrested and detained by ICE were not facing charges for other crimes or previously convicted. The Trump administration has taken aim at legal immigrants as well. Agents have arrested spouses of US citizens at their green card interviews, pulled people from certain countries out of their naturalization ceremonies, moments before they were to become citizens, and revoked thousands of student visas.
PLANS TO TARGET EMPLOYERS
The administration’s planned focus on job sites in the coming year could generate many more arrests and affect the US economy and Republican-leaning business owners.
Replacing immigrants arrested during workplace raids could lead to higher labor costs, undermining Trump’s fight against inflation, which analysts expect to be a major issue in the closely watched November elections, determining control of Congress. Administration officials earlier this year exempted such businesses from enforcement on Trump’s orders, then quickly reversed, Reuters reported at the time.
Some immigration hard-liners have called for more workplace enforcement.
“Eventually you’re going to have to go after these employers,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which backs lower levels of immigration. “When that starts happening the employers will start cleaning up their acts on their own.”
The expanded deportation plans come despite growing signs of political backlash ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Miami, one of the cities most affected by Trump’s crackdown because of its large immigrant population, elected its first Democratic mayor in nearly three decades last week in what the mayor-elect said was, in part, a reaction to the president. Other local elections and polling have suggested rising concern among voters wary of aggressive immigration tactics. “People are beginning to see this not as an immigration question anymore as much as it is a violation of rights, a violation of due process and militarizing neighborhoods extraconstitutionally,” said Mike Madrid, a moderate Republican political strategist. “There is no question that is a problem for the president and Republicans.” Trump’s overall approval rating on immigration policy fell from 50 percent in March, before he launched crackdowns in several major US cities, to 41 percent in mid-December, for what had been his strongest issue. Rising public unease has focused on masked federal agents using aggressive tactics such as deploying tear gas in residential neighborhoods and detaining US citizens.
’NUMBERS WILL EXPLODE’
In addition to expanding enforcement actions, Trump has stripped hundreds of thousands of Haitian, Venezuelan and Afghan immigrants of temporary legal status, expanding the pool of people who could be deported as the president promises to remove 1 million immigrants each year – a goal he almost certainly will miss this year. So far, some 622,000 immigrants have been deported since Trump took office in January.
White House border czar Tom Homan told Reuters Trump had delivered on his promise of a historic deportation operation and removing criminals while shutting down illegal immigration across the US-Mexico border. Homan said the number of arrests will increase sharply as ICE hires more officers and expands detention capacity with the new funding.
“I think you’re going to see the numbers explode greatly next year,” Homan said.
Homan said the plans “absolutely” include more enforcement actions at workplaces.
Sarah Pierce, director of social policy at the center-left group Third Way, said US businesses have been reluctant to push back on Trump’s immigration crackdown in the past year but could be prompted to speak up if the focus turns to employers.
Pierce said it will be interesting to see “whether or not businesses finally stand up to this administration.”
Trump, a Republican, recaptured the White House promising record levels of deportations, saying it was needed after years of high levels of illegal immigration under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. He kicked off a campaign that dispatched federal agents to US cities in search of possible immigration offenders, sparking protests and lawsuits over racial profiling and violent tactics.
Some businesses shut down to avoid raids or because of a lack of customers. Parents vulnerable to arrest kept their children home from school or had neighbors walk them. Some US citizens started carrying passports. Despite the focus on criminals in its public statements, government data shows that the Trump administration has been arresting more people who have not been charged with any crimes beyond their alleged immigration violations than previous administrations.
Some 41 percent of the roughly 54,000 people arrested by ICE and detained by late November had no criminal record beyond a suspected immigration violation, agency figures show. In the first few weeks in January, before Trump took office, just 6 percent of those arrested and detained by ICE were not facing charges for other crimes or previously convicted. The Trump administration has taken aim at legal immigrants as well. Agents have arrested spouses of US citizens at their green card interviews, pulled people from certain countries out of their naturalization ceremonies, moments before they were to become citizens, and revoked thousands of student visas.
PLANS TO TARGET EMPLOYERS
The administration’s planned focus on job sites in the coming year could generate many more arrests and affect the US economy and Republican-leaning business owners.
Replacing immigrants arrested during workplace raids could lead to higher labor costs, undermining Trump’s fight against inflation, which analysts expect to be a major issue in the closely watched November elections, determining control of Congress. Administration officials earlier this year exempted such businesses from enforcement on Trump’s orders, then quickly reversed, Reuters reported at the time.
Some immigration hard-liners have called for more workplace enforcement.
“Eventually you’re going to have to go after these employers,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which backs lower levels of immigration. “When that starts happening the employers will start cleaning up their acts on their own.”
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