Tell Congress to end immigration family detention and protect children’s rights. No child should be detained

Action Center

  1. Home
  2. Action Center

Ensure a fair future for children

Help hold our government accountable for the treatment of children and the advancement of their rights.

Tell Congress: Close Dilley. No child should be detained.

Since January 2025, ICE has arrested over 8,500 children and held them in Dilley and other facilities, even in offices and hotels. It’s still happening. Our attorneys have heard families at Dilley describe fear, nightmares, and inhumane conditions that no one should experience. There is no safe, humane way to detain a child. Tell lawmakers to close Dilley, protect Flores, and take meaningful action to end the detention of children.

Sign the Petition

Tell Congress: Don’t Forget About Kids

Children’s futures are on the line. Budget cuts impacting their access to healthcare. Attacks on education. Rollbacks in protections. Policies that harm kids instead of helping them. Children deserve better. Send a letter today and demand they put children first.

Sign the Petition

Tell your state and city leaders: Act now to keep families together and children safe

Current federal immigration policies are undermining the basic rights of children. In this national moment, state and local leaders play a decisive role in ensuring children’s rights are upheld. Tell them to step up now for the kids in their communities.

Add Your Name

Protect Children and Families: Urge Congress to Vote NO on the Budget Bill

The May budget reconciliation bill will put immigrant children in danger, leading to more families and children arrested and detained in ICE detention centers. If passed, this bill would gravely endanger innumerable children and families. Contact your members of Congress today and demand they vote NO on this dangerous bill.

Add Your Name

Deliver Mother’s Day to the Moms of Dilley

The moms of Dilley deserve to know we see them — and that we’re not looking away. Send a letter, a card, a poem or lyric you love, a drawing, or a few words of hope — whatever feels right. Our attorneys will make sure your words reach the moms inside.

Show Up For Her

Send Hope to Children at Dilley This Valentine’s Day

Right now, children are inside the Dilley ICE detention facility, separated from everything familiar—afraid they will be forgotten. They haven’t been forgotten. Let’s show them. Send your message to the children at Dilley by Monday, February 16, 2026. Our attorneys will make sure they see them.

Send a Card

Remember the magic of being a kid? Let’s protect it together.

Think back to a moment of pure childhood joy. Now, imagine a world where every kid has the chance to create those memories. Share yours and join us in making it a reality. Because childhood is our first right.

Share a Memory

Tell Congress: Stand Firm. Children’s mental health funding must be stable, protected, and reliable.

Congress pushed back against cuts to children’s mental health programs—but that progress is now at risk. Abrupt funding changes threaten care for millions of kids and families. Children’s mental health should never be a political pawn. Tell Congress to protect and fully fund these programs before January 30.

Sign the Petition

What Would You Do To Get Your Child Mental Health Care?

Our healthcare system is failing to address children’s mental health needs. When faced with a system that often meets children in a mental health crisis with obstacles rather than help, parents and caregivers are forced to make heartbreaking choices. If it were your neighbor, your best friend, or your student. If it were your own child. What would you do to get them the services that they need?

Take the journey

Take a Stand for Kids

We all agree: children’s needs should come first. But too often, lawmakers fail to make them a priority. Now is the time to remind our leaders of our values. Add your name to take a stand for kids.

Add Your Name

Congress: Reject a bill that punishes immigrant children

Immigrant children deserve care, stability, and a chance to thrive. But if passed as written, the federal budget would do the opposite: restricting access to healthcare and slashing vital supports for children while pouring billions into prison-like detention centers where no child belongs. Our tax dollars should help kids, not hurt them. Tell Congress to reject this harmful budget and invest in children instead.

Sign the Petition

Tell Congress: Protect Medicaid. Protect Our Kids.

Every child deserves access to healthcare—no matter their zip code, family income, or background. But potentially significant federal budget cuts to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) could compromise that access for the over 37 million children covered under these programs. It’s time to speak up.

Sign the Petition

Take a Moment for Kids’ Mental Health

What will you prioritize this Mental Health Awareness Month? Every child deserves care, connection, and someone who truly listens. Pick at least one small action today that can make a big difference.

Take the pledge

Dream Forward for Kids—Raise Your Voice for Justice

For generations, dreams have fueled movements for justice—and they live on through us. Progress has been made, but inequality continues to harm Black children and families. We must continue to raise our voices and dream of a better future. Share your vision for a more just and equitable world for kids. Your words will be amplified across Children’s Rights’ channels, sending a powerful message: we are all dreaming forward—for kids, for families, and for justice. Add your voice today.

Share Your Dreams

Tell Congress: Protect America’s children by restoring critical funding now.

Congress must act immediately to end the White House’s illegal freeze on federal assistance. This reckless move puts essential programs — including food assistance, school meals, housing, and child care — at risk. For families who are already struggling, this instills additional stress and uncertainty into their lives, jeopardizing children’s safety and well-being.

Sign the Petition

Pledge to Foster Truth For Kids

Every day, thousands of children and young adults are separated from their families and placed into foster systems where they are abused and neglected. The trauma they endure carries with them into adulthood, impacting their health, relationships, and sense of self. Is this how we treat kids? Add your name and pledge to Foster Truth for Kids. Let’s raise our voices loud and advocate for better treatment of our children.

Sign the Pledge

Send Messages of Love and Affirmation to LGBTQ+ Youth

Join us in sending messages to uplift LGBTQ+ youth and families. Your words will be shared through Children’s Rights’ social channels, spreading the message that we celebrate every young person with love and affirmation.

Send Your Message
Take the quiz - The drugging of kids in America's foster systems

The drugging of kids in America’s foster systems

The child mental health crisis is mounting, and more children than ever are prescribed psychotropic drugs instead of receiving services to help them heal. Take our short quiz to discover more about the drugging of kids in America’s foster systems.

Take the Quiz

Call on Mayor Adams to Follow the Law and Close Rikers Island

Rikers incarcerates hundreds of young adults who are more often there because their mental health conditions have been criminalized. Join us in calling for Mayor Adams to close Rikers Island, help end the foster system-to-prison pipeline, and invest in the preventive services our communities need.

Sign the Petition

Stop Criminalizing Children, Invest In Their Healing

In communities across the nation, police—not a trained mental health professionals—are the first to respond to a child’s mental health or social crisis. Call on your policymakers to stop prison pipelines and fund community services that will allow young people to develop and heal.

Sign the Petition

Ask the Experts

As we grow the movement of advocates for kids, we want to empower our community with knowledge. Now is your chance to ask the experts your questions about the systems that shape kids’ lives.

Ask the Experts

Sign the Healthy Kids Healthy Minds Pledge

We’re asking you to take our #HealthyKidsHealthyMinds Pledge to bring child mental illness out of the shadows and into the light. By adding your name, you will be a difference maker who is helping to build awareness for this national crisis.

Sign the Pledge
Young adult hugging grandmother

Disrupt Institutional Racism in Child Welfare Systems

Pledge to help end the unjust, unnecessary, and devastating surveillance, investigation, and removal of Black children from their families. Add your name.

Sign the Pledge

Fight Against Discrimination, Demand More Loving Homes for Children

Urge Congress to pass the John Lewis Every Child Deserves a Family Act (ECDFA). By banning discrimination in child welfare, the ECDFA would increase the number of foster and adoptive homes available to youth, giving them the best possible chance to find a safe, stable, and loving home.

Sign the Petition

We Need Laws and Policies that Celebrate and Empower LGBTQ+ Youth

LGBTQ+ youth are overrepresented in child welfare systems, where they are more likely to suffer from harassment and abuse in the foster system, juvenile legal settings, and homeless shelters. Demand equality NOW and call on your senators to pass the Equality Act.

Sign the Petition

Detention is No Place for a Child

President Biden promised to end family detention, but right now, his Administration is considering returning to the use of this cruel practice. We demand policies that recognize the humanity and dignity of immigrant children—and will ensure children are valued, not targeted or vilified.

Sign the Petition

Demand Policymakers Free Our Youth

Prioritize the Health & Safety of Our Children in Dangerous Facilities

Sign the Petition

Advocate for Kids

Stay updated on how we’re holding governments accountable and how you can get involved.