‘Things Don’t Go Back To The Way They Were’: Reunited Children Suffering Psychological Toll From Separations
Parents report that once-carefree kids are now quiet and scared. Some cry uncontrollably or suffer panic attacks and hide behind furniture when visitors come into the house, others are playacting as ICE border patrol officers. Many of them are changed from who their parents say they were before they were taken into custody. Meanwhile, lawmakers are demanding answers from federal immigration officials, and a judge has ordered the transfer of all undocumented minors from a detention facility due to allegations of abuse.
The New York Times:
A Migrant Boy Rejoins His Mother, But He’s Not The Same
Before they were separated at the southwest border, Ana Carolina Fernandes’s 5-year-old son loved playing with the yellow, impish Minion characters from the “Despicable Me” movies. Now his favorite game is patting down and shackling “migrants” with plastic cuffs. After being separated from his mother for 50 days, Thiago isn’t the same boy who was taken away from her by Border Patrol agents when they arrived in the United States from Brazil, Ms. Fernandes said last week. (Jordan, 7/31)
The Associated Press:
ICE, Border Patrol At Senate Hearing On Family Separations
The Senate Judiciary Committee is demanding answers from federal immigration officials about the Trump administration's separation of migrant children from their families and its struggle to reunite them, a fraught effort that's drawn election-year criticism from both parties. But a hearing scheduled for Tuesday on the topic may have a wider focus after the committee's bipartisan leaders asked federal investigators to probe reports of sexual and other abuse of immigrants at government detention facilities. (Fram, 7/31)
USA Today:
Judge Orders Minors Transferred Out Of Immigration Detention Facility
A federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to transfer all undocumented immigrant minors out of a detention facility in Texas due to allegations of abuse and over-medication against the children. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ruled that conditions at the Shiloh Residential Treatment Center in Manvel, Texas, violate a 1997 court settlement that dictates how the government must care for minors who entered the country illegally on their own or were separated from their parents. (Gomez, 7/30)
The New York Times:
How One Agency Built A Multimillion-Dollar Business In Migrant Children
When 17-year-old Destani Williams ran away from an upstate New York residential treatment program in May 2017 and was found dead a week later, it was but the latest in a string of troubling incidents at Cayuga Centers, a 166-year-old child-welfare agency. In the year leading up to her death, three workers were arrested on charges of abuse, and the agency was sued for negligence as a result. The local police in Auburn, N.Y., complained about hundreds of emergency calls to deal with runaway residents and violent incidents on the campus, which included residents injuring police officers, throwing chairs through windows and wielding shards of glass to cut staff members. (Robbins, 7/31)
