Trump Officials Claim to Be Unaware of the Psychological Trauma of Family Separation [psmag.com]

Alicia Doktor 9/19/184:00 AM

In a tense hearing on Tuesday, members of the Senate questioned Department of Homeland Security officials about the detention of immigrant families. During the exchanges, the officials repeatedly asserted that they were unaware of any negative psychological effects detention could have on children.

The pattern of the officials' answers, first noted by ThinkProgress, stands in stark contrast to the mountain of recent warnings from experts and public-health officials about the dramatic short- and long-term psychological damage detention and family separation can have on children.

According to ThinkProgress, two high-ranking Trump officials—Matthew Albence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Robert Perez of Customs and Border Protection—both stated that they had not seen statements released from experts in their own umbrella department, the DHS. As the New York Times reported in July, a letter from two expert physicians at the DHS disclosed that extensive investigations carried out under both the Obama and Trump administrations "frequently revealed serious compliance issues resulting in harm to children."

[For more on this story by JACK HERRERA, go to https://psmag.com/news/trump-o...of-family-separation]

For another story on this topic, see Separated: Toxic stress and child development under 'zero-tolerance' immigration policies]

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Karen ClemmerMember

This policy is heartbreaking! Family separations are preventable ACEs! As a child I experienced parental abduction for several months. It was confusing and traumatic - and I was with my siblings and a parent. I cannot imagine what it might have been like to be in a cage without the buffering effect of siblings or a parent.

Grateful to champions such as Karen Johnson who articulate the consequences of family separation. Copied from a linked source:

Karen Johnson, senior director of trauma-informed services at the National Council for Behavioral Health, says that what we're likely seeing in these children's responses is a protective numbing or disassociating. Weeks- to months-long separations have an impact on a child's brain, Johnson says, "which speaks to the urgency to make sure that children do not spend one hour longer than they need to separated from their parents."

Johnson is concerned that children's stress responses are being turned on indefinitely in these scenarios, which directly affects the neural pathways in the brain and the immune system.

"The release of stress hormones, such as cortisol, happens when a child experiences something that is terrifying to them or scary, and the way to buffer that or to help a child move through that or to biologically turn off that hormone is through a nurturing, caring relationship," Johnson says. But in cases where children have gone without interaction with their caregiver, the stress response in a child's system remains on for however long they've been separated. When the stress response does not get shut off, the neurons in the brain change. And those changes can have consequences.

9/20/182:58 PM