ICE has detained more than 8,750 children since Trump returned to office, according to data obtained by the Deportation Data Project, and court filings in the long-running Flores case document 86 children held for more than three days in hotels in February and March, The Marshall Project reported on October 8, 2026, in a story published with the Guardian. In April the federal judge overseeing the Flores settlement repeated an order for ICE to stop keeping children in hotels, with “a narrow exception for brief, one to two-night stays while in transit or prior to flights,” and the court has since appointed an independent monitor who can inspect them, FOX 7 Austin and the Los Angeles Times reported.
A mother identified as M.S.P. told The Marshall Project she and her children were held for nine days in a Texas hotel room with two guards present at all times, and her lawyer could not find them. DHS and ICE did not respond to questions about the hotels; in court filings the government cited flight delays and missing travel documents. The figures on hotel detentions rest on The Marshall Project's reading of the court filings.