Immigrants migrate to America to live out their American dream and provide for their families. These families are fleeing violent countries; trying to provide for their family’s necessities like food, water, and safety. But what society doesn’t fully acknowledge is that at the U.S and Mexico border children and parents get separated. Trump signed a zero-tolerance policy that separates children from their parents, to those who violate the law and cross illegally into the United States of America.
The American dream is constantly spoken about in Mexico and other Central American countries, it’s everyone’s desire. When you search images of the United States everything looks pretty, and it paints an ideal picture of what people crave. People have the misconception that coming to the United States is just paying a “coyote” to cross you over and mission accomplished. Fleeing to America is a way to get past the difficult situations that these immigrants face in their native country. Immigrant families are being separated at the U.S-Mexico border. The twenty-first century has negatively impacted illegal immigrants from crossing to the United States much more than in the past. Now children regardless of their age are being torn away from their parent’s arms and taken into detention centers. This is causing children to become mentally disturbed and show physical affects.
Back in 2001, I crossed over to the United States illegally. My family lived in poverty and my parents were trying to provide the essentials to survive. I too, like these children at the age of six, was separated from my family at the border. The only difference was that I was with the coyote’s family waiting for my turn to cross and let me say that it was terrifying. I will never forget the horrific expression on my sister Alicia’s face when they told her she would have to swim across the river holding on to a rope that was connecting the two sides. I remember feeling the icy cold water against my back when it was time to cross the Rio Grande. I was later left at a house in Texas with a family waiting for my turn to go through the second checkpoint.
127 our experts are availableright now
Like a normal six-year-old, I thought my family had abandoned me because I could not have contact with my two older sisters until I was on U.S soil. Many immigrant children traveling with parents or relatives are facing separation. This is done because of the zero-tolerance policy that Trump signed back in 2018 (González, 3). Hearing about these things on the news made me curious about the other half of the story because there is always a second side to everything; the media was only reporting on immigrants getting caught but not why they are fleeing in the first place. Many Hispanic parents are afraid of waking up to find bodies hanging from bridges and this becoming their normality.
Mexico and Central America are known for poverty and gang violence. This is nothing but the truth; people are forced to flee and seek asylum in the United States of America (Noroña et al, 11). If this was a strategy to discourage immigrants from entering the U.S; it will not work because parents would rather get separated from their children then to hand them over to gangs, the cartel, or death.
2018 marked a year in immigration that many changes were made, some of them very devastating to underage children. The Trump administration signed the zero-tolerance policy that required any immigrant parent to enter the United States illegally with a child and seeking asylum to be detained and separated from each other. This went on for many months before it ended because many important people were against this policy. Roberto J. González Chair of the Department of Anthropology at San Jose State University disclosed that U.S District Judge Dana Sabraw said, “For every parent who is not located, there will be a permanently orphaned child”, this is alarming because these children will most likely be adopted even though they have family out there who want them back (González, 3).
There were thousands of people crossing the U.S-Mexico border, therefore the number of children at the detention centers was just as high. Before entering the centers, they must get processed for future reference. Due to the lack of communication and possibly the lack of staff, many children were lost in the system leaving them “alone” in the U.S. Shortly after all this unfortunate situation started to unfold, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reunite all children giving them a deadline, the 26th of July, 2018. In desperate need to execute the order, the U.S started using DNA testing to try and reunite families (González, 3). It’s very heart breaking to know that U.S homeland security had to be forced to do this because the government does not have a heart for these innocent children. This shows that if it is not their children suffering, they do not care for others.
Many Americans brush off the situation because they think that these children are well-taken care for, but the reality is very different. Simon Romero a reporter employed by the New York Times at El Paso, Texas reported that: Three agents who work at the facility in Clint, Texas said they had seen unaccompanied children as young as 3 years old enter the facility, and lawyers who recently inspected the site as part of a lawsuit on migrant children’s rights said they saw children as young as 5 months old. (Romero et al, 25)
This is scary that this policy doesn’t make an exception for those babies who may need to be breastfed or can’t look after themselves if necessary. It is amazing how these agents are sharing things like this because if you have ever traveled out of the country and you go through customs you can’t get a gesture or anything out of these agents. It’s because they are trained to do a job without their emotions getting the best of them. Now imagine one of those big scary patrol officers describing these situations as “heartbreaking” sharing devasting details of the circumstances these children are in (Romero et al, 14-18).
During the time spent at the detention centers children are experiencing neglect. Some of the children are facing lice infestation, hunger, sleeping on the ground, no shower, and no toothbrush just to name a few things that they are going through at the facilities, so it is a big deal (Romero et al, 45-48). Children are by no means being taken care in concern to their age and necessities. All children in detention centers should be provided by essentials to have better hygiene while in detention.
Many professionals expressed their concerns about the traumas that these children are currently facing and the possibility of them developing in the long run. The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Collen Kraft, has on multiple occasions pointed out her concerns for these children. Dr. Kraft emphasizes on traumas that these immigrant children will develop during their stay at these terrible detention camps. She points out that many will not develop their speech, their gross and fine motor skills, and will have developmental delays (Riley, 2).
Before becoming a lost number in the system some children at these detention camps have already been exposed to trauma on their way here witnessing violence and rape or even being a victim themselves. But as if that’s not enough let’s give them a little dose of anxiety by separating them from parents. These children will most likely be strong candidates in the future for obesity, type 2 diabetes, chronic inflammation and cardiovascular disease (Teicher, 2). That is just some internal issues children will develop (Romero et al, 7-8). What about protecting all children regardless of their legal status, what’s the exception with these children? Children and parents should be kept together to avoid acute or long term emotional and physical damage due to the unnecessary separation.
On June 20, 2018, when President Trump signed the executive order to stop the zero-tolerance policy, he then requested that children and parents be detained together until their parent’s court hearing (Noroña et al, 9). This would make the situation easier to handle. Children could have a high chance of developing their character because it would prevent them from traumas. Allowing children and parents to stay together is the best solution for the country. This could decrease the number of children for protentional foster care and help the country save money on the number of tests done on these children.
Understanding why other people decide to leave their country is painful but so relatable. Waking up to violence or waking up to not having anything on the table to eat is hard and fleeing is the only option. What will the government do to help these children after causing this pain and what could be a solution for all parties involved? I think that the government can try and place children close to where their parents are staying. This would allow the government an opportunity to organize meetings between the families and give relief to both sides.
Maybe the U.S government could provide free sessions with specialists to the families during their time at the detention camps. The money that is being spent on DNA tests could be used for the right care for these children and parents; maybe providing psychologists and therapists for these innocent humans. Reuniting families will not erase the pain or traumas of these children. I also believe that allowing children to stay with their parents could be an option. I will never be okay with the separation of a family when all they are trying to do is survive.
Works Cited
- González, R. (2018). Cruel and unusual. Anthropology Today, 34(5), pp.3-4. Print.
- Noroña, Carmen Rosa, et al. “Historical, Sociopolitical, and Mental Health Implications of Forcible Separations in Young Migrant Latin American Children and Their Families.” Zero to Three, vol. 39, no. 1, Sept. 2018, p. 8. Print.
- Riley, Hurley. ‘The Impact Of Parent-Child Separation At The Border’. Sph.Umich.Edu, 2020. 7 April 2020 accessed. https://sph.umich.edu/pursuit/2018posts/family-separation-US-border.html. Website.
- Romero, Simon et al. ‘Hungry, Scared And Sick: Inside The Migrant Detention Center In Clint, Tex.’. Nytimes.Com, 2020. 7 April 2020 accessed. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/06/us/migrants-border-patrol-clint.html. Website.
- Teicher, Martin H. “Children Trauma and the Ending Consequences of Forcibly Separating Children from Parents at the United States Border.” BMC Medicine, vol. 16, no. 1, Aug. 2018, p 146. Print.
