EDITOR’S NOTE: Rümeysa Öztürk was unlawfully detained by ICE agents in Massachusetts in March 2025 for an op-ed she co-authored in the Tufts Daily. She was held in a for-profit detention facility in Louisiana for weeks. She has spent her time after being released working on her dissertation. She now holds a Ph.D. in child study and human development. Each day, I read more news about children as young as two years old who are detained in a for-profit ICE detention center in Dilley, Texas, away from their friends, schools, and communities. I see reports of handwritten letters from children asking to be released, as they describe the fear they experience day in and day out while in detention. As an applied developmental scientist who spent more than 13 years studying child and youth development, as well as someone who has firsthand experienced the horrors of encountering immigration enforcement and the inhumane treatment and conditions that follow, I am deeply concerned for children i...