I feel like you struggle with the concept of "jurisdiction", and if we were going to look at the holistic picture, rather than charging foreign refugees with child endangerment, we'd be offering them reparations eg subsidizing schooling the way USAID used to until Lord Musk and the DOGE boys took a chainsaw to it.

I still think it's ridiculous that you refer to ICE detention as "kid gloves."

Again, rather than ignoring migrant families, the US government actively targets them; ICE uses Palantir surveillance software to track down and arrest hundreds of parents and relatives simply because they stepped forward to sponsor their unaccompanied migrant children, and now thousands of children are currently in the US foster care system because their parents were deported without them.

You are right, though, that marginalized US citizens face aggressive state intervention and child separation. The US criminal justice and child welfare systems frequently target poor domestic parents, using the threat of child removal to coerce them or punish them.

For example, marginalized women facing minor charges or accused of drug use have faced secret child welfare proceedings, incarceration, and having their newborns placed directly into the foster care system. Domestically, the carceral system routinely tears families apart, leaving hundreds of thousands of parents locked in jail and missing from their children's lives.

Yes being under the jurisdiction of the evil USA obviously increases your risk profile while you're in the move. I don't understand why you think that's off the table. That's the whole point. It's legally impermissible to have your kids hopping freight trains and living in the desert in the USA while you move. The USA has the highest per capita of people in jail or under supervision and they aggressively pursue the tiniest infractions, unlike someplace like Mexico or Panama.

You're going to point out that's illegal in random latin american country too. Except the state apparatus is far weaker and more corrupt there, so there's actually a chance to bribe your way around it or just pass through the cracks.

The whole point is to end up with your family in the end, except if nature or criminals take them away, but if in the end the state breaks up the surviving family then you're heading for a dead end regardless. Latin American countries aren't breaking up families to anything near the extent the US does. The USA's bread and butter is breaking up families using the might of the state and they can't do that while you're out of their jurisdiction. If you can stay out of their jurisdiction for most of the move, you can bypass the CPS apparatus in the meanwhile. It actually might be better to go through Mexico to move from say California to Texas while broke, for that reason.

If you want to point out post-move if you are present illegally that might get you tossed out, then sure. But that's the case about everywhere but Argentina, Brazil, and back-bush Africa. A domestic family can also get tossed out for being here illegally (renounced citizenship, or whatever). That's another red herring though. ICE doesn't enforce moving without money, they enforce being present in the USA illegally (or, occasionally, legally, a la Goode / Pretti). If you get the visa to enter the USA, they won't give a single shit about all the kids that got ripped into some river in the Darien, died of some tropical disease while camped without mosquito nets, or all manner of other things they would damn a domestic family for.