{"id":76021,"date":"2019-02-08T14:44:35","date_gmt":"2019-02-08T20:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=76021"},"modified":"2019-02-15T14:27:31","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T20:27:31","slug":"trump-calls-border-migrants-a-tremendous-onslaught-sparking-concerns-from-mental-health-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/trump-calls-border-migrants-a-tremendous-onslaught-sparking-concerns-from-mental-health-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump calls border migrants a \u201ctremendous onslaught,\u201d sparking concerns from mental health experts"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Carly Graf<\/strong>
\nMedill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n

President Donald Trump described the U.S. and Mexican boundary as \u201cour very dangerous southern border,” during his State of the Union address<\/a> Tuesday night, reigniting concerns about punitive immigration practices and mental health impacts.<\/p>\n

His rallying cry included a call to Congress to put the \u201cruthless coyotes, cartels, drug dealers and human traffickers out of business.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

In the shadow of the longest government shutdown in history, spurred by a political standoff over funding for a border wall, scrutiny of the administration\u2019s policy rekindled also after a January a report from the Office of the Inspector General. The report revealed that thousands more children may have been taken from parents than initially reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that keeps us awake at night, though, is that these separations continue,\u201d said Jennifer Nagda, policy director at the Young Center for Immigrant Children\u2019s Rights. Nagda is based in Chicago but the organization oversees the cases of separated children at various locations across the country.<\/p>\n

Experts such as David Ansari, a medical anthropologist and transnational migration expert, believes the practices of detaining migrants fleeing trauma and separating families should be considered \u201cpathogenic policies\u201d that trigger and sustain poor health.<\/p>\n

The American Academy of Pediatrics agrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are detained in facilities that utterly fail to meet their needs. Children are kept in cages and sleep on cement floors. They are exposed to frigid temperatures, open toilets and lights on all the time. And they aren\u2019t receiving adequate medical and mental health screening and care,\u201d wrote Dr. Colleen Kraft, former academy president in an editorial in December<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Consequences of such retributive policing extend far beyond the days spent in detention centers, especially for young children.<\/p>\n

\u201cHighly stressful experiences, like family separation, can cause irreparable harm, disrupting a child\u2019s brain architecture and affecting his or her short- and long-term health,\u201d Kraft said in an interview. \u201cThis type of prolonged exposure to serious stress\u2014known as toxic stress\u2014can carry lifelong consequences for children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nagda recalled multiple cases of children sent to the Young Center who lost their ability to speak, forgot their potty-training skills and grew increasingly withdrawn after being separated from parents.<\/p>\n

Stories of mistreatment at the border started to leak early last summer, quickly followed by a court order in June that mandated reunification for families who fit \u201ccertain criteria.\u201d The combination scaled things down but, much to the public\u2019s surprise, border officials continue to use detention and separation, making an already worrisome mental health crisis even more grave, said Ansari.<\/p>\n

Despite its reunification requirement, the June court decision granted the Department of Homeland Security the authority to separate parents who have a \u201ccriminal history,\u201d an open-ended classification with no public definition that\u2019s been deployed to justify separations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had kids whose parents were taken away because an extended family member was in a gang, committed a burglary 15 years ago or was arrested for something and never charged,\u201d Nagda said.<\/p>\n

Many individuals crossing the southern border are seeking asylum, often fleeing violence or persecution. However, the Trump administration has systematically sought to restrict the flow of refugees and asylum-seekers by relying on deterrence, in essence making examples of some migrants to convince those who may come in the future that they\u2019d be better off staying in their home country.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeterrence is just another form of violence,\u201d Ansari said.<\/p>\n

As another border-related government shutdown looms many mental health and immigration experts are calling on legislators to employ a more sympathetic approach to border policing, including the creation of a narrow definition of \u201ccriminal history\u201d with clear parameters.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, it doesn\u2019t serve the safety or interest of the kids,\u201d Nagda said. \u201cThis shouldn\u2019t be how we treat our children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo at top: People peer through the barrier that separates the U.S. from Mexico in Tijuana. (Flickr)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Carly Graf Medill Reports President Donald Trump described the U.S. and Mexican boundary as \u201cour very dangerous southern border,” during his State of the Union address Tuesday night, reigniting concerns about punitive immigration practices and mental health impacts. His rallying cry included a call to Congress to put the \u201cruthless coyotes, cartels, drug dealers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":536,"featured_media":76031,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,29,2951,30,675,4559],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-interest","category-health-and-science","category-politicsnational-security","category-public-affairs","category-social-justice","category-winter-2019"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump calls border migrants a \u201ctremendous onslaught,\u201d sparking concerns from mental health experts - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/trump-calls-border-migrants-a-tremendous-onslaught-sparking-concerns-from-mental-health-experts\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump calls border migrants a \u201ctremendous onslaught,\u201d sparking concerns from mental health experts - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Carly Graf Medill Reports President Donald Trump described the U.S. and Mexican boundary as \u201cour very dangerous southern border,” during his State of the Union address Tuesday night, reigniting concerns about punitive immigration practices and mental health impacts. 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