by Mary Ann Baron

As a psychotherapist for children, adolescents and families I have been watching closely the thousands of children from Mexico and Central America being taken away from their parents at the border recently by our present administration. I’m concerned about the effects on the mental health of these children.

I am writing this piece to outline to the public the enormity of the trauma to these children and the reality that the experiences they had at the borders of the United States have had severe traumatic experiences that will affect them for the remainder of their lives. Human lives, both parents and children were not taken into consideration, only that mandates from the administration that children be separated from their parents immediately.

As of July 16, 2,551 migrant children ages 5- to 17-years-old were in government custody. To date, 1,317 have been cleared for reunification with their parents by DHS, but only 300 of them had approval for release from an additional federal agency “Immigration & Customs Enforcement.”

A court order mandated that 2,000 migrant children must be returned to their parents by July 26. This deadline has elapsed with statistics from July 27 on CNN stating that one in three children still rare not united with their parents. The government has reunited 1,422 families with children ages five and older. To date, 378 children have already been released to another family member or friend who can care for them, children released to parents already out of government custody and those who have turned 18. Presently there are 700 children still left in government custody.

It is worth mentioning that the Obama administration had a role in the immigration detention issue in 2014, when surges of families and children (70,000) came to the USA from Central America. Obama's administration considered separating children from their parents, but it was immediately rejected by his staff, although more family detention centers were recommended. So the history is to keep families together.

Trump’s much more forceful and inhumane mandate of separating kids from parents occurred on Feb. 2017. Then in 2018 Trump reversed his initial stance but only when there was backlash from the public when an audio tape titled “Wailing Children” was released. On this tape children were heard crying and screaming for their parents and begging staff to call their relatives. With the new government edict parents could be reunited with their children only if they wore ankle monitors until their amnesty case was resolved. The task of reunification has been wrought with issues such as how to locate the children as they were sent all over the country and there was no data base or records to use to find them. In addition, the courts have stated children could only stay in detention centers for 20 days. What happens to the children still in the detention centers?

From a mental health perspective all of these children have experienced various levels of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. PTSD is a diagnosis from the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders from the APA that is described as a disorder in which a person has difficulty recovering after experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event. The children at the border have witnessed violent attacks towards neighbors and family members in their homeland and the condition of war in their homeland.

In addition, their experiences included leaving their homeland and making a journey wrought with danger and unscrupulous people and lastly being exposed to a forced separation by border guards from their parents. This forced separation can be more accurately be described as kidnapping since they were taken away by force. A majority of parents were not able to say goodbye or to explain to their children what was going on. Children were then brought to one of 106 detention center locations nationwide and funneled into eight “staging locations.”

Data received from The New York Times and CNN report that many of these children had reactions of fear, anxiety, depression, anger, aggression and self-destructive behaviors as well as feeling sad, feeling isolated and stigmatized, agitation, hostility, hyper vigilance, exhibiting poor self-esteem and difficulty trusting others, flashbacks insomnia or nightmares. Children have been denied their need to communicate their feelings and denied the human touch from staff or other kids, which only compounds their sensory deprivation inside the detentions center.

All of these events are happening to children ages between the ages of 1 and 18. Our administration has not been responsible in making sure these children were provided with safeguards as they entered our country. A task force of mental health professionals could have easily been involved in the decision-making process of how to help these children in a humane manner.

Where these children were placed is identical to incarceration, when in fact they are not criminals. In reality when children are placed in a detention center they are treated as criminals and begin to use similar behaviors to escape the horror of forced incarceration including acting out, screaming, throwing items, cursing. These children had no control over their lives, and no parent to protect them. They were expected to accept strangers to feed and manage their behaviors with no support system in place to nurture children, especially the very young ones who are younger than 7.

In short, this continues to be a nightmare scenario. I encourage anyone who can to please volunteer or contribute to some of the organizations trying to help these children and families. I have researched many such organizations and recommend The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), the largest immigration services legal nonprofit in Texas. By donating to RAICES, you support every aspect of legal aid for immigrant families. You can donate directly through their websiteraicestexas.org

Additionally, educate yourself. For an excellent history of recent immigration from Mexico and Central America, I encourage readers to view the program titled, Frontline's “Separated: Children at the Border” on WHYY-TV. It chronicles the unsafe, hazardous and traumatic journeys of children and parents to America. Call your congresspersons and demand that they resolve this issue in a humane manner.

All children deserve humane and kind treatment.

Mary Ann Baron is licensed professional counselor who lives in Mt. Airy.