01-08-2025
Pets are being abandoned, surrendered amid Trump's immigration crackdown
Daymi Blain dreads the sound of her phone.
It rings at all hours now — and every time, she braces for the voice on the other end. A person calling because their relative was taken in an immigration raid, leaving several cats behind. A neighbor reporting dogs wandering the street after their family vanished overnight. A trembling voice begging her to take in a pet because its owner is leaving the country and can't bring it.
'This is all we're getting now: pets with deported and detained owners. Nobody calls for anything else,' said Blain, who runs the South Florida-based Adopt and Save a Life Rescue Mission. 'I don't know what's going to happen with all this, but I can tell you that the animals are the ones paying the price.'
From California to Tennessee, the effects of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown have reached a place most wouldn't think to look: the kennels of overcrowded animal shelters.
Animal welfare groups across the country say they're fielding a surge of calls about pets left behind when their owners are detained or deported, or self-deport in fear. That heightened need is colliding with a shelter system already stretched thin by post-pandemic overcrowding, chronic staffing shortages and plummeting adoptions — leading to longer stays for animals, difficult choices about space and growing fears that more pets could be euthanized simply because there's nowhere for them to go.
'All rescues like us plan for disasters,' said Jean Harrison of the Nashville-based Big Fluffy Dog Rescue. 'I plan for floods. I plan for the tornado and hurricane seasons coming up. It did not cross my mind that I needed to be prepared for an onslaught of displaced pets from deported immigrants.'
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement 'does NOT impound property.' The agency did not respond to questions seeking clarification.
The dogs that have become collateral damage in the raids include Lucero, a young, mixed‑breed dog abandoned near a gas station after her trucker owner was suddenly detained; Lolita and Bruno, a German shepherd pair with six puppies, all surrendered by a man facing deportation after 25 years in the United States; and Oso, a fluffy doodle whose family fled in fear of immigration authorities.
It's not clear how many animals have been displaced. No government agency keeps track, and rescuers said families are sometimes afraid to disclose that immigration was the reason for their surrender. Other times, the animals were found roaming neighborhoods or abandoned in their homes, with little information about what happened to their owners.
More than 56,800 people were in ICE custody as of July 13, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse data. It's unclear how many are pet owners.
But surges in abandoned or surrendered animals appear to overlap with areas where immigration enforcement has been intense. Blain said her shelter in Florida — which experienced the largest single-state immigration operation in history this year — has absorbed at least 19 dogs, 12 cats, 11 roosters and a menagerie of rabbits, guinea pigs and pigeons since the spring.
In California, a focal point of the immigration crackdown, the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control said 15 dogs had been relinquished since June because of deportations. In New York, Animal Care Centers of New York City — which recently suspended intake due to capacity issues — said it has handled four immigration-related cases this year.
And in Tennessee, Harrison has watched what she calls three distinct 'waves' of animals flood her kennels.
The first came in the spring, when Venezuelan families began surrendering pets after the Trump administration rolled back their parole and protections from deportation. The second — and largest — hit in May, when ICE conducted sweeping raids.
The final wave has been the aftermath: pets left in empty homes, often unfed and unnoticed for weeks. In one case, rescuers found two Great Pyrenees so skeletal that 'the heaviest one weighed just 49 pounds — dogs that should weigh 110,' Harrison said. 'They had some water, but no food. Nobody knew they were there.'
Other shelters said they're seeing the same trend: strays suddenly roaming neighborhoods, often purebreds or young puppies that wouldn't typically end up in the system.
'We're taking in dogs you don't usually see at shelters — Yorkies, Frenchies — because these families are just gone,' said Heydi Acuna of the Tampa-based Mercy Full Project, which has worked with some 25 immigration‑related cases in recent months, amounting to at least 100 animals.
The rescue organizations said they are operating far beyond capacity, part of a patchwork system strained by too many animals and not nearly enough resources. Even before the surge in immigration-related pet abandonment, higher costs of living and rising veterinary costs have meant more surrenders and fewer adoptions in recent years, said Kara Starzyk, shelter manager at Abandoned Pet Rescue in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
'We're on the verge — actually past the verge. It's already collapsed,' she said. 'I mean, there's just no space for all these animals.'
The shelters that once served as lifelines are overwhelmed, too. In the Northeast, facilities that used to absorb animals from the overcrowded South — helping stave off euthanasia — now find themselves in crisis.
'We have crates set up in hallways and offices everywhere we can,' said Katy Hansen, of New York City's Animal Care Centers. 'And the whole country is like this.'
With no government aid or plan for the animals' long-term care, shelters said they've been forced to take matters into their own hands. Some, like Harrison's, have even rewritten their mission statements. Once devoted exclusively to rehoming oversize, fluffy breeds, her group now makes space for any immigrant's dog.
Others have shifted almost entirely to handling immigration-related cases. Rescue directors described activating their volunteer networks, working phones late into the night and scrambling to place animals in foster homes before they run out of room.
In Fort Lauderdale, that scramble led to Lola — a 6‑year‑old black lab mix — being surrendered by her Cameroonian owner after the Trump administration canceled temporary protected status for his country. Faced with the loss of his legal footing in the U.S., he made the wrenching decision to leave Lola with Abandoned Pet Rescue.
Vijay Ramdeen, a 39-year-old chemistry professor, adopted her in June. Lola's story struck a personal chord with him. His own parents had immigrated from the Caribbean, and he couldn't stop thinking about the man who'd been forced to say goodbye.
'I'm sure he wonders every day where she is, if she's okay,' Ramdeen said. 'I just wish I could tell him she's safe. She's loved.'
Now, Lola spends her days following Ramdeen around his condo, curling up by his feet and chasing her favorite ball across the balcony at night.
