Stuck in shelters, some migrant children abandon hopes of staying in U.S.

November 2, 2026 / 5:00 AM EST / KFF Health News

One morning this summer, a 9-year-old girl from El Salvador picked through colorful markers at a Houston-area shelter for migrant children and crafted a letter to her mom.

"I want to be with you already," the little girl, M.R., wrote in misspelled, unpunctuated Spanish, adding hearts, a rainbow, and a large "I love you" surrounded by pink and blue dots. "I miss you a lot, mami I love you a lot mami I want to be with you."

The girl had begged to leave the government-run shelter where she had been held for more than seven months, an attorney for the child said. She'd become distraught, telling her mom on the phone that she felt sad and lonely, that she desperately wanted a hug, that she was getting nosebleeds and thought she had an infection.

Meanwhile, as her mother, Carmen, was going through the process to regain custody, federal immigration officials instead arrested her, sending her to a Louisiana detention center though she had a pending asylum case and no criminal record.

"Both of us are trapped," Carmen said in a September interview from the detention center. "She's just…

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/healthwatch/