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Marc Marin

Ms. Emmanuel

Composition

21 Apr. 2021

The Forgotten Kids

The U.S. border is lined with detention centers for immigrants who crossed the U.S.- Mexican

border illegally. While crossing the border is against the law, these detention centers are meant to

separate and incarcerate immigrant children, which not only is an invasion of life, liberty and

pursuit of happiness. An elusive American Dream which is nothing but facade for those who

want to enter the “dream land”. Trump's policies have affected detention centers for the worse,

the conditions within the detention centers, and the physiological effects on children are making

the environment a terrible place for a human being to be

Detention centers around the country’s border have been jammed packed for the past year.

The Trump administration reformed Obama’s previous immigrant laws affecting hundreds of

thousands immigrants. Trump’s administration has allowed for the detention of children within

United States soil, while the parents of these children have been deported. The Trump

Administration promised to reunite these families together; however 445 children still have not

been reunited with their parents and simply can not locate them according to the New York

Times. This is a result of Trump’s policy “to prosecute all undocumented immigrants in the
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United States, even if it meant separating children from their parents” (NY). A moral and ethical

issue affecting the lives of hundreds of families. This policy has only further exacerbated the

amount of children and conditions of these facilities.

According to NPR, “The Trump Administration announced a new regulation that would allow

it to detain migrant families who have crossed the U.S. border illegally for an indefinite period of

time.“ (NY). When Trump’s Administration allowed for the detention of families for an

indefinite period of time, it only negatively affected the families; which means that these centers

are no longer detention centers but have more resemblance to a jail facility. The efforts to reunify

childrens and parents has only come into play as a result of Biden taking office, but rather the

Biden administration struggles to contact both sides. “Including many children being held in jail

like facilities for longer than the law permits because of overcrowding” (NY). The effects of

these jail like facilities may be overlooked as the need for space as at such a high demand but the

effects on children could be critical and even life changing.

“A recently published study in Social Science & Medicine found that 32% of children at a

detention center showed signs of emotional problems. The study involved interviews with 425

mothers of children at the detention center, who filled out a questionnaire about mental health

symptoms in their kids.”(NPR). Not only are children experiencing being forcibly removed from

their parents but on top of that also suffer emotional stress. And a researcher, MacLean, who

interviewed children in a detention center found that “17% of the children showed significant

symptoms of PTSD. "And [they] likely would be diagnosed with PTSD if they saw a

physician,“. Associations with this symptom are common among army soldiers who have toured

around the world seeing and experiencing horrific scenes.

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Something just as horrific is being experienced by young children in these detention centers.

Even the name given to these facilities “detention centers” seem to have a very negative

connotation considering innocent children are being held like prisoners within their walls. And

another key element to consider is that “most Central American children in U.S. immigration

detention centers have already experienced layers of trauma by the time they arrive here, says

Zayas. The trauma "that happened in their home countries — the violence, the extortion, the

police complicity, government inaction," he says. "Then they've trekked through Mexico, where

they've seen some great horrors — rapes and assaults and violence and death" (npr). It could be

implied that past trauma could be filtering through in the research and not accurately portraying

children’s current mental state; however, this is not only overlooking the emotional distress these

children are in but also the fact of the horrendous pasts these children have isn’t being treated by

a medical professional when there could be.

Becoming aware of the problem at hand is one of the first steps towards shedding light on the

negative effects of these detention centers. Along with becoming aware, being able to bring

information like this to local government offices will not only make it more apparent, but cause

change on a local, regional, and national level.

(851)
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Work Cited Page

Chatterjee, Rhitu. “Lengthy Detention Of Migrant Children May Create

Lasting Trauma, Say Researchers.” NPR, NPR, 23 Aug. 2019,

www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/08/23/753757475/lengthy-detention-of-migrant-
children-may-create-lasting-trauma-say-researchers.

Kavi, Aishvarya. “A Court Filing Says Parents of 445 Separated Migrant

Children Still Have Not Been Found.” The New York Times, The New York

Times, 8 Apr. 2021,

www.nytimes.com/2021/04/07/us/migrant-children-separated-border.html.

Solano, Romelia M. “Analysis | Biden Is Pursuing a Pathway to Citizenship.

He Will Face Two Key Challenges.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 29

Jan. 2021,

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/29/biden-is-pursuing-pathway-citizenship-he-
will-face-two-key-challenges/.
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