As a pediatrician and advocate working with immigrant families, I see firsthand the deleterious toll on children who live under constant fear that the person who takes care of them could at any moment be taken away. A robust body of research shows that children who grow up with family instability, economic strain and chronic stress suffer poorer health, lower educational achievement and increased poverty and hunger. Indeed the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child delineates the importance of maintaining family unity. It specifies that “the child has to know and be cared for by his or her parents…a child should not be separated from his or her parents against their will…and both parents have common responsibilities for the upbringing and development of the child.”
Last month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in United States v. Texas, a case that will determine whether President Obama’s 2014 executive actions to defer the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants are within his legal authority. Texas and other states are challenging the legality of the DACA and DAPA programs that would defer the deportation of the undocumented parents of citizens and lawful permanent residents, and of people who arrived in the U.S. as children. Together the programs would provide up to 5.2 million undocumented immigrants – many of them parents of U.S born children or legal residents – a path to citizenship.
[For more of this story, written by Alan Shapiro, go to http://thehill.com/blogs/congr...-affects-kids-health]
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