Five-year-old Thiago is free from the custody of Trump administration officials, but he is nowhere close to free from the trauma they inflicted on him. When Thiago and his mom Ana Carolina Fernandes first “got home after being reunited, the boy—whom she hadn’t nursed in years—pleaded to be breast-fed. When visitors showed up at the family’s new home in Philadelphia, he crouched behind the sofa. ‘He’s been like that since I got him back,’ Ms. Fernandes said. ‘He doesn’t want to talk to anyone.’”
Mass deportation policies are toxic, and attorneys and advocates are saying that migrant children kidnapped by the Trump administration are “exhibiting signs of anxiety, introversion, regression and other mental health issues.” Thiago’s mom said he used to love “Despicable Me” toys. “Now his favorite game is patting down and shackling ‘migrants’ with plastic cuffs”
Another child, advocates say, pretends to “vaccinate people around him, behavior he almost certainly witnessed in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.” Thiago and many other children now become terrified when their parents leave the room to take a bath, convinced they’re being separated yet again. When Thiago’s mom went out of sight for a second at a restaurant, “he became antsy and frightened. ‘Where’s my mom?’ he asked repeatedly, his eyes darting around the room.
“There is no greater threat to a child’s emotional well-being,” said Professor Johanna Bick, “than being separated from a primary caregiver. Even if it was for a short period, for a child, that’s an eternity.” This trauma can be long-lasting, but she says that “the good news is that children are resilient, and early intervention can benefit them.” The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has asked a judge to establish a mental health counseling fund for these kids, and while that could be some justice, it’s nowhere close to the justice needed to right the wrong committed by the Trump administration.
Who will go to jail over these atrocities?
Migrant children were sexually abused, kicked, fed raw meat, forcibly drugged, denied drinking water, traumatized, with the orders clearly coming from the very top of this criminal administration, yet not one official has been forced by this complicit Republican Congress to resign or is facing any criminal charges. There’s not enough outrage for what’s happening in our name, and there’s not enough outrage for the watchers looking the other way while children suffer.