How many children have been found during ice raids

1. What the sources actually document: incident counts versus aggregate detention totals

Local and national outlets have documented individual incidents where children were present and detained in ICE operations—examples cited include a five‑year‑old in Minneapolis and reports that four children from a Columbia Heights school district were detained during recent raids—which are concrete, verifiable instances drawn from reporting and school officials ^{[4] [1] [5]}. Separately, data analyses compiled by outlets citing the Deportation Data Project and The Marshall Project show aggregate figures for children in ICE custody—reporting that ICE held around 170 children on an average day and that more than 3,800 children had been detained so far in the year—numbers that capture family detention dynamics rather than single‑raid tallies ^{[3] [2]}.

2. Why a single “how many were found in raids” number is elusive

Neither the news items nor the public datasets in the supplied reporting provide a running, raid‑by‑raid national ledger that tallies every child “found” during enforcement actions; reporting focuses on high‑visibility raids, local impacts, and aggregate detention rolls ^{[1] [2] [6]}. That gap matters: aggregate detention counts (3,800+ children, ~170 per day) reflect children in ICE family detention facilities and transfers, which include but do not isolate children first encountered specifically at the moment of a raid ^{[2] [3]}. Journalistic accounts and advocacy trackers document many raid incidents, but they do not add up to an authoritative national total of children discovered in the field during each enforcement action ^{[7] [8]}.

3. What the larger statistics tell about scale and trends

The reporting portrays a sharp uptick in children being detained with families under recent enforcement surges: the Marshall Project’s December analysis puts the year‑to‑date detained children in the thousands and other outlets corroborate large daily averages—signals of systemic change rather than isolated anecdotes ^{[2] [3]}. Those aggregate figures align with local reporting that describes frequent family arrests in homes, hospitals, schools and workplaces, producing visible instances—like the Minneapolis child—while also generating higher detention facility populations ^{[1] [5] [6]}.

4. Competing narratives, agendas, and what to watch for in the data

Government statements emphasize criminal‑alien removals and law enforcement priorities, framing operations as targeting public‑safety threats ^[9]. Advocacy groups and local officials highlight family separations, trauma to schoolchildren, and what they call aggressive tactics—producing tracked maps and case counts from community monitoring projects ^{[6] [7] [8]}. Reporters and data projects often have different implicit agendas—storytelling versus systemic measurement—so readers should treat incident reporting and aggregate detention statistics as complementary, not interchangeable, sources ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

5. Bottom line — the direct answer

Based on the supplied reporting, specific, documented raid incidents include multiple named children (for example, a five‑year‑old and four Minnesota children reported by school officials and multiple outlets), but there is no single, authoritative national count of children “found during raids” in the materials provided; instead, available data describe children held in ICE custody more broadly—more than 3,800 detained so far this year and roughly 170 children on an average day—figures that encompass family detention beyond the moment of any single raid ^{[4] [5] [2] [3]}. Any definitive number of children discovered specifically at the point of individual raids would require a dedicated aggregation of operation‑level records that the current reporting does not provide.