ImmigrationMedical experts alarmed over impact of family separation on children
Lat Thursday, thousands of medical experts and mental health professionals and researchers sent a letter to DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Attorney General Jeff Sessions calling for an immediate end to forced family separation at the border, citing concerns from the medical community over the trauma and potentially long-lasting damage it has on children’s health and well-being. “The United States should follow the “best interests of the child” standard and immediately stop the practice of forced separation. It should not be U.S. policy to traumatize children, especially not as a form of indirect punishment of their parents,” the mental health professionals wrote.
Lat Thursday, thousands of medical experts and mental health professionals and researchers sent a letter to DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Attorney General Jeff Sessions calling for an immediate end to forced family separation at the border, citing concerns from the medical community over the trauma and potentially long-lasting damage it has on children’s health and well-being.
Earlier this week, the Center for American Progress (CAP) hosted a press call with Senator Tina Smith (D-Minnesota) and researchers to discuss how family separation affects the welfare of children. Here are highlights from their remarks:
Senator Tina Smith (D-Minnesota), lead author of the Humane Enforcement and Legal Protections (HELP) for Separated Children Act:
No child should have to face the terror and confusion of being ripped away from their family … Whether this happens at the border or during interior enforcement raids, no child should have to endure this trauma. I was moved to action on this after hearing a story of a child left alone after an immigration raid in my home state of Minnesota. In 2006, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement carried out an enforcement action in Worthington, Minnesota, a second-grader came home from school to find his 2-year-old brother alone with his parents gone, and for the next week, that second-grader cared for his brother while his grandmother was driving to Worthington to meet and take care of them. This is unacceptable and immoral, and it is using children as a deterrent. Children shouldn’t find themselves suddenly abandoned, whether at home, at school, or at the border. The bill I introduced is called the HELP Separated Children Act, which focuses on children being ripped away from their parents during interior detention actions. It provides common-sense measures like allowing parents to make calls to arrange for the care of their children and make sure children can visit their parents when detained. This administration’s zero-tolerance policy is breaking apart families, and it’s deeply unsettling.
