Federal immigration agents across the country are visiting the homes of migrant children who arrived in the U.S. without their parents, saying they want to check on the children’s welfare — but some immigrant advocates and elected leaders in Baltimore say the visits are just a pretext.

The real intent, they argue, is to use the visits as an excuse to find undocumented immigrants. That’s a tactic some families say has intimidated them and made them and others worried about possible detention and deportation.

In interviews, lawyers and politicians described hearing from clients and constituents directly about large groups of ICE agents showing up at homes unannounced since President Donald Trump took office in January.

“I know of one family that has now been visited twice. It’s concerning,” said Baltimore Councilmember Mark Parker, who recounted three incidents this month in the Highlandtown neighborhood.

The Baltimore Banner asked to speak with the families directly, but through Parker, they declined to comment.

The visits, which occurred around breakfast time, were ostensibly to check on elementary and middle school-age children, according to the families’ accounts, which were relayed by Parker. None of them resulted in immediate detention for the children or their relatives.

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“Families who are being visited are being put in a tough spot,” Parker said — they want to comply out of fear they could lose supervision of the children.

One Baltimore-area attorney, Maria Colón, said a visit to one of her clients’ homes included FBI agents.

Agents typically ask to speak with the child, inspect their bedroom and ask about other adults living in the house. They often are armed, said Jason Boyd, vice president of U.S. federal policy at Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), a nonprofit that provides legal services to unaccompanied immigrant children.

“These checks have sown acute fear, panic [and] confusion among children and loved ones throughout the United States,” said Boyd.

The controversial practice centers around unaccompanied immigrant children. After they arrive, they are resettled by the government with their own parents already in the country or with other sponsors.

Some conservative lawmakers and Trump administration officials have said these children are especially vulnerable to abuse or trafficking.

A federal Department of Homeland Security Inspector General report released last year found that ICE has struggled at times to keep track of unaccompanied children. Trump administration officials used the audit to accuse the Biden administration of effectively losing hundreds of thousands of children.

“Many of the unaccompanied children that came across the border are victims of smugglers and sex traffickers,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. She added that her agency is leading the welfare checks “to ensure [the children] are safe and not being exploited” in an attempt to reunite children with their families.

The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is separate from Homeland Security and part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is responsible for resettling these children with sponsors, most often their parents, after a vetting process.

After that, the children are ordered to immigration court. Eventually, they could be granted permission to stay legally or be deported. In the meanwhile, ICE can also investigate suspected cases of abuse or trafficking.

The federal resettlement vetting process is designed to place these children into responsible hands, attorneys and advocates say, but Trump officials have said it is rife with fraud and abuse.

The refugee resettlement office is not participating in the DHS-led wellness checks, the office said in a statement this week, but resettlement officials still work closely with all relevant agencies, including local law enforcement, if a child’s safety may be at risk, according to the statement.

Last year’s inspector general report concluded that ICE had failed to issue immigration court hearings in a timely manner.

Trump officials used that finding, as well as others, to conclude the children are “lost.” Advocates for the children called that conclusion specious, saying the majority of children are simply waiting for their day in court.

It’s also unclear about how many unaccompanied children may have been put into harm’s way. The number of cases of sexual abuse reported to the agency, for example, decreased from 27 in 2017 to three in 2023.

The stepped-up ICE efforts about wellness checks have been reported in other states.

On April 7, video taken by lawyer James Rivera, in Sterling, Virginia, showed such an encounter, according to CNN.

Federal immigration agents came to the home of an unaccompanied minor, who is now a 19-year-old green card applicant. She was not home when the plainclothes agents were there, according to Rivera. In an interview, the lawyer said he had never seen agents come to homes and conduct wellness checks before.

Boyd, the immigration legal advocate, said that “ICE lacks expertise in child welfare."

“Far from achieving the administration’s stated aim of safeguarding these children from trafficking and exploitation, the wellness checks appear to be having the effect of making children fearful of engaging with any authorities at all.”

Earlier this year, the Trump administration issued a stop work order that froze legal assistance for 26,000 kids, Boyd said, a move that has been temporarily reversed by a judge.

“If the federal government cared about children ... they would not cut vital services and supports, like legal services for unaccompanied children,” Marisa Chumil, co-director of the child advocate program at the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, said in a statement.

If the administration cared about child safety, then child welfare experts would be conducting wellness checks, she added.

In Baltimore, the city school system said in a statement this week that “we want to reassure our community that we take these concerns seriously. We have consistently provided our schools and families with guidance on what to do if approached by immigration authorities — whether at home or on school grounds."

In response to questions about ICE wellness checks, Lilly Price, spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Human Services, the state agency responsible for child welfare protection, wrote in part that “we will continue to work with our dedicated stakeholder partners to ensure children and families have the resources they need.”

Donna Batkis, a licensed clinical social worker and member of the Latino Racial Justice Circle, fears the recent “wellness checks” will have a “chilling effect” on her work and that of other clinicians offering services to immigrant populations.

“It has an enormous impact,” she said, adding she does in-home therapy for members of the immigrant community. “Trust is so important.”

Batkis added that “a lot of the information is passed by word of mouth. People will discuss what they have experienced. That can be harmful for people who want to be invited into people’s homes.”