The Trump administration had nearly 70,000 migrant children in custody this year. They are sent to 170 shelters where mental health experts say they risk being exposed to trauma that can cause lifelong problems. Read more from AP & frontlinepbs.
In this Aug. 23, 2019, photo, a Honduran father stands at his home in Comayagua, Honduras, after talking in an interview about being separated from his 3-year-old daughter at the border after traveling for weeks to seek asylum in the U.S. According to court records, his daughter was sexually abused in U.S. foster care. She was later deported and arrived back in Honduras withdrawn, anxious and angry. He fears their bond is forever broken.
Some of these migrant children who were in government custody this year have already been deported. Some have reunited with family in the U.S., where they’re trying to go to school and piece back together their lives. About 4,000 are still in government custody, some in large, impersonal shelters. And more arrive every week.
One Honduran teen who was held in a large detention center for four months before reuniting with his mother said that, as each day passed, his fear and anxiety grew. “She said that I had left her alone and she was crying,” said her father during an interview with the AP and Frontline at their home in Honduras. ”‘I don’t love you Daddy, you left me alone,’” she told him. The father agreed to speak about their case on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.
On an August afternoon in their hometown, the little girl had her hair tied up in pigtails. Her dress was a frilly lavender and her pink sneakers were decorated with bows. She played with her younger sister and snuggled up beside her grandfather, but ignored her father’s entreaties and refused to hold his hand, convinced he tried to leave her for good.He didn’t know of any psychological support in their town to help her process the abuse she suffered.
In an urgent request to fund an emergency shelter earlier this year, HHS warned “Without a way to provide these services, there is an unacceptable risk that thousands of UAC would be without their basic human needs, which would result in injury/death of children.” “So we want to be a country that inflicts further trauma on individuals who are experiencing intensive adversity and are seeking refuge and help in a neighboring nation?” asked Matlow, who has met with detained migrant children inside several of the largest migrant detention facilities.
Eskinder Negash, who heads the nonprofit U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, knows the trauma of separation and detention all too well, and has spent his life seeking solutions.
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