Carly Wanna Photo
Rosa DeLauro at Monday’s press conference.
At detention centers on the Southern border of the United States, a sea of mylar subsidizes comfort, predictability and parents for the thousands of children detained and separated from their mothers and fathers in attempts to cross the border.
And the effects of that trauma will last for years.
So reported U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Yale child psychologists at a press conference Monday in the Cohen Auditorium of the Yale Child Study Center.
DeLauro and fellow Connecticut Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty, who also attended the event, just returned from a visit to the Texas border’s detention centers, site of heated political debate regarding the separation of families who have crossed the border together.
“What we saw was worse than what we had imagining was happening at the border,” said DeLauro.
The two congresswomen spoke at length about their time at Port Isabel, a service processing center in South Texas. They described it as a “prison.”
The press conference took place just one day before the Appropriations Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives will begin considering proposals about how to deal with issues related to detention of immigrants at the border. More than 180 member of Congress have already joined DeLauro in a House resolution condemning Trump’s former “zero tolerance policy” introduced in April, calling its provisions a form of child abuse.
While cameras are not allowed into the facilities the congresswomen visited this past weekend, they described the “staggering scene” as “dehumanizing,” specifically referencing the trauma endured by parents and children, many of whom, they said, are unsure when or if they will be united.
DeLauro said that to keep warm, the families get mylar blankets as they sleep on concrete floors. It was all they had to cling onto.
Steven Marans and Linda Mayes.
Steven Marans, director of the Yale Child Study Center’s Trauma Service unit, and Linda Mayes,who directs the Yale Child Study Center, also attended the press conference. DeLauro expressed a desire to bring Maran to Washington to discuss the psychological risks –– including increased susceptibility to agitation, irritability, fearfulness, post traumatic stress disorder, separation anxiety and depression –– associated with removing children from their parents at formative ages.
Mayes mentioned the difficulties experienced by adults as well, many of whom she says have been faced with a situation they do not know how to handle. The representatives met with women, all of whom the facility selected to speak with the Congressional visitors. Only one of the 15 mothers with whom they met with knew the location of her child.
“The others do not know where their children are, and they don’t know when they’re going to get a court date,” said DeLauro.
Even in the most trying moments of crossing the border, Marans said children would have the most important buffering factor: their parents. Now an estimated more than 2,000 children have been separated from their mothers or fathers, leading to feelings of hopelessness. Sometimes the child will simply blame himself or herself for the separation, Marans said.
He spoke of the specific challenges faced by children under the age of 3, many of whom face heightened risk of developing separation anxiety and substance abuse among other emotional backlashes provided by such exacerbations.
Marans stressed the immediate need to resolve the border separations first.
“We cannot talk about trauma treatment until we’re able to ensure that the ongoing danger does not exist,” said Marans.
Elizabeth Esty.
Esty said the country needs more administrative law judges to handle asylum claims immediately. She said that, like every country, the United States must secure its borders. But she said the current policy has created a humanitarian crisis. By modern standards, DeLauro argued, this treatment breaks an international taboo not practiced by refugee camps around the world.
“Nobody separates children from their parents,” she said.
DeLauro beckoned those in the auditorium to think of their own families, their own kids. She mentioned the panic parents receive from even slight separations from their children in a department store, a blip compared to the prolonged splits many of the families have faced.
“This is not the United States of America,” she said.
Posers Return Notes: