Stop abusing immigrant children and their families crossing our border
Why are children still at risk of the government separating migrant children from their parents?
Originally published on The Hill: “Stop expelling and separating immigrant children and parents during COVID”
As we all know, the separation of children and families at the border was deemed unconstitutional with an executive order to stop back in June 2018. So why are toddlers and children again being separated from their parents?
Children are fleeing trafficking, gang violence, multiple types of chronic abuse, and come to the U.S. border expecting adults to understand their victimization and help them to safety from persecution. Instead, they face traumatic options when they come to our border. Children are…
Quickly expelled to countries with high rates of child trafficking and violence, where they may or may not have an adult to care for them
Kept in a U.S. sponsored shelter but then awoken at all hours and flown out of the country without the family being aware;
Separated (even if infants or toddlers) if their parents relinquish custody
Indefinitely detained with their families during the pandemic, despite a ruling that found insufficient measures to protect children and families in detention from COVID-19.
Which would you choose?
All of these “options” are abusive to children. As a child/adolescent psychiatrist and humanitarian protection adviser, I’ve worked for over a decade with unaccompanied children and their families. The government is creating an allostatic load of stress that can accumulate and cause irreparable physical and mental health damage to children.
Expelling children to violent situations, detaining children with parents in filthy conditions without the capacity for hygiene, or separating children from parents, are not suitable solutions during the COVID-19 crisis. We need to promptly release and reunify children with their families and end family detention. Our society should not be one in which some children and families are more deserving of basic human rights than others.
Read the full story on The Hill