In May 2017, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that over 41,000 people had been arrested for immigration violations during Trump’s first 100 days in office. Given that the Trump administration has pledged to make reducing undocumented immigration a cornerstone of its agenda, such arrests are likely to continue and even increase in the coming weeks and months.

Today one in ten children in the U.S.—over seven million children in total—lives with at least one undocumented parent. Research has shown that the deportation of a parent can have significant negative effects on children’s well-being, including increased economic and emotional distress. In a new report published by the Urban Institute, RSF grantees Julia Gelatt (Migration Policy Institute) and Heather Koball (Columbia University), with Hamutal Bernstein and Charmaine Runes, explore the effects of immigration crackdowns at the state level on low-income immigrant families with children. They examine changes in immigration policies across the nation between 2005-2010 and find that when states increase immigration enforcement, low-income immigrant families experience greater material hardship, including having trouble paying rent and utilities bills.

Such hardships have profound consequences for the families that experience them. “In the short term,” the authors write, “increased material hardship means children and parents experience financial stress, sometimes go without basic necessities like electricity or heat, experience housing instability because of missed rent payments, or go without needed medical care. Over the long term, material hardship has negative implications for children’s cognitive, social, and physical development.”

View the full report from the Urban Institute.