Psychological Damage From Separation Has Already Been Done To Kids, Experts Say As Trump Caves On Immigration Policy
“It’s not like an auto body shop where you fix the dent and everything looks like new. We’re talking about children’s minds,” said Luis H. Zayas, professor of social work and psychiatry at the University of Texas at Austin. “We did the harm; we should be responsible for fixing the damage. But the sad thing for most of these kids is this trauma is likely to go untreated.”
The Washington Post:
Fact-Checking Claims About Trump’s Plan To Stop Family Separations
A new executive order signed by President Trump lays out steps to end the separation of immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border. We see this as a tacit admission by the Trump administration that many of its previous claims about family separations were bunk. Until Trump signed the order June 20, the administration was insisting that it didn’t have a policy of separating families (false), that several laws and court rulings were forcing these separations (false), that Democrats were to blame (false), that only Congress could stop family separations (false) and that an executive order wouldn’t get the job done. (Rizzo and Kelly, 6/21)
The New York Times:
Trump’s Executive Order On Family Separation, Explained
President Trump on Wednesday sought to quell the uproar over his administration’s systematic separation of immigrant children from their families at the border, signing an executive order he portrayed as ending the problem. (Savage, 6/20)
The New York Times:
Trump Retreats On Separating Families, But Thousands May Remain Apart
“We’re going to have strong — very strong — borders, but we are going to keep the families together,” Mr. Trump said as he signed the order in the Oval Office. “I didn’t like the sight or the feeling of families being separated.” But ending the practice of separating families still faces legal and practical obstacles. A federal judge could refuse to give the Trump administration the authority it wants to hold families in custody for more than 20 days, which is the current limit because of a 1997 court order. (Shear, Goodnough, and Haberman, 6/20)
The Washington Post:
The Trauma Of Separation Lingers Long After Children Are Reunited With Parents
Long after the wailing and tears, the trauma of separation can linger in children’s minds, even after they are reunited with their parents, experts say. On Wednesday, under pressure from around the globe and his own party, President Trump signed an executive order to keep migrant families together. For some, the crisis may now seem resolved. But experts warn that for many of those children, the psychological damage of their separation will require treatment by mental health professionals — services they are extremely unlikely to receive because of U.S. government policies for undocumented migrants. (Wan, 6/20)
Los Angeles Times:
The Long-Lasting Health Effects Of Separating Children From Their Parents At The U.S. Border
Researchers have long looked upon wars, famines and mass migrations as grim but important opportunities to understand how adversity affects children’s health. They’ve culled the experiences of orphans warehoused in government facilities, Jewish children dispatched to foreign families ahead of a Nazi invasion, and young refugees fleeing guerrilla warfare in Central America. They’ve conducted experiments in child development labs, taken brain scans, used epidemiological methods, examined the narratives of children torn from their parents — all in an effort to find meaning in tragedy. (Healy, 6/20)
Los Angeles Times:
'Children Must Not Be Abused For Political Purposes': What Health Groups Say About Family Separation
America’s medical and public health organizations have been unanimous in their criticism of the Trump administration’s practice of separating migrant children from their parents at the southern border. President Trump signed an executive order ending the policy on Wednesday, after U.S. border officials placed more than 2,300 children in facilities away from their parents, who were detained for criminal prosecution. Here’s a roundup of why these groups opposed the family separation policy, and what they’ve said about it. (Healy, 6/20)