The Trump administration failed to meet a court-ordered deadline, reuniting only about half of the children separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border by Tuesday because it could not locate many of the parents. President Donald Trump only offered a glib response when asked about the plight of the remaining young migrant children who were forcibly separated from their parents by his administration:"Tell people not to come to our country illegally. That’s the solution. Don’t come to our country illegally. Come like other people do. Come legally."
When a reporter asked him in front of the White House about whether he supported punishing children for their parents' mistakes on Tuesday, Trump avoided the question and reiterated his earlier talking point.
"I’m saying this: We have laws. We have borders. Don’t come to our country illegally. It’s not a good thing," Trump told the reporter.
A massive outcry erupted after Trump was revealed to have forcibly separated immigrant children from their parents at the border, with one historian comparing his approach toward immigrants with the white supremacist politics of George Wallace. Although the administration was ordered to reunite the 102 children under 5 years of age separated from their families with their parents, they had only done so with 54 of them by Tuesday and needed an extension, according to NBC News. More than 2,000 children overall were separated from their parents by U.S. immigration authorities.
Trump also suffered a major legal setback in his campaign against undocumented immigrants, courtesy of a federal judge in California.
On Monday U. S. District Judge Dolly Gee ruled that the Trump administration does not have the right to increase the terms of detainment for undocumented immigrants, arguing that they had failed to provide new evidence that would justify revising the existing court order which limits the detention length, according to a report by CBS News and the Associated Press. The underlying dispute was over whether the Department of Justice could alter a settlement made in 1997 that established how immigrant children could be detained. The Department of Justice's goal was to alter the terms so that they could hold families together for longer than was previously the case.
Gee argued that this was a "cynical attempt" to reverse the status quo, which is similar to her ruling from 2015 (when President Barack Obama was in office) when she decided that, despite Obama's efforts to extend the detention period, immigrant children should not be detained for longer than 20 days. The Trump administration, on the other hand, has argued that Gee's previous rulings made it less likely that families would be detained and, consequently, would lead to an increase of children being brought across the border by immigrants entering the country illegally.
"We disagree with the court's ruling declining to amend the Flores Agreement to recognize the current crisis of families making the dangerous and unlawful journey across our southern border," Trump administration spokesman Devin O'Malley said in a statement.
By contrast, attorney Peter Schey, who represented detained children in the settlement, argued that "sifting through the government's false narrative, the court clearly found that the Flores settlement has never resulted in the separation of families. President Trump needs to take responsibility for his own misguided policies." (The Flores settlement was a decision based on the case of an immigrant from El Salvador who was 15 when he came to the United States in 1985.)
Aside from the political consequences that the Trump administration may suffer for forcibly separating children from their parents, much attention has been paid to the psychological trauma that will be inflicted on the children themselves. This piece in June by ABC News contained a number of evaluations from psychologists on the trauma that Trump's family separation policy will inflict on its victims.
According to University of Texas psychiatry professor Luis Zayas: "Two of the most damaging childhood adversities are loss of the attachment bond with the parents and childhood physical and sexual abuse. If you want to damage someone permanently, expose him or her to one or both of these traumas."
He added, "No amount of colorful rooms with lots of great toys, regular meals, and health and education services takes away the psychological impact of losing your parents. The damage that will be done will last a lifetime."
And also: "Even a week in detention, under circumstances like the ones we’re seeing in immigration enforcement, can be devastating. Young children’s incapacity to understand time makes 50 days equal to 50 months, they simply cannot grasp it. Just look at how children view a school day of six hours or even a visit to some boring relatives’ home, as an eternity."
According to Dr. Colleen Kraft, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who visited a shelter in Texas: "It is a form of child abuse. This type of trauma can be long-lasting, and it's difficult to recover from this. We know very young children go on to not develop their speech, not develop their language, not develop their gross and fine motor skills and wind up with developmental delays."
According to Jodi Berger Cardoso of the University of Houston, who has researched detained migrant children: "Detention of any kind—especially when separated from primary caretakers—will exacerbate symptoms, increasing the severity of trauma-related symptoms, depression, and anxiety. Children become hopeless and shut down from the stress. During this time, they need their primary caretaker to help reassure them that they are safe and loved. This cannot be done by strangers, no matter the quality of the facility."
She added, "Daily life for children becomes very difficult. Getting up, going to school, taking care of themselves, feels like impossible tasks. Like anyone who is in a heightened state of fear and isolation, it triggers fight or flight responses in our body. Children may try to fight through their emotions but eventually, their bodies and minds will be overwhelmed with the stress and they will begin to shut down."
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