Campaign Action
Migrant children kidnapped from their family at the U.S./Mexico border aren’t free from their trauma just because they Trump administration has, reluctantly, returned them to the arms of their parents where they belong. Experts say that these kids will “see lasting consequences, even if they are with their parents.” For inflicting “life altering” trauma, a new class-action lawsuit says, the government that ripped them apart in the first place should have to pay.
"The damage is unbelievable, and the focus has been on reunification because, of course, the judge has ordered that,” said Jesse Bless, one of the attorneys suing for the administration to pay for mental health treatment and other damages. “But now it's about restoration. And that is something the government is not taking responsibility for, but so desperately needs to be done, and we're here to make sure that happens.” Several children named in the lawsuit are in desperate need of help.
11-year-old "C.J.'s nightmares are so bad that he falls out of bed,” CNN reported. “Another child—a 10-year-old referred to in the lawsuit by her initials of K.O.-—‘wakes up in the middle of the night, crying.’ The girl also follows her mother whenever she leaves the room ‘and fears she will abandon her again,’ the lawsuit says.” Other children, not named in the lawsuit but also separated from parents under the barbaric “zero tolerance” policy, seemed to completely disassociate their parents upon reunification.
“Ever, what’s wrong with my son?” one woman cried to her husband this past August. Their son, Sammy, had been separated from them for months, yet squirmed out of her arms like she was a complete stranger. When she again attempted to hold him, the boy again rushed away. “What happened … my son is traumatized, Ever,” she again cried. What happened was, that the United States damaged her child.
“There is no greater threat to a child’s emotional well-being, than being separated from a primary caregiver,” University of Houston psychology professor Johanna Bick said according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which had also called on the courts to force the administration to pay for mental health counseling. “Even if it was for a short period,” Bick continued, “for a child, that’s an eternity.”
Im blatant violation of a court-mandated July 26 reunification deadline, more than 400 migrant kids continue to remain separated from parents and under U.S. custody. Yet no one from the administration has gone to jail, been fined, been punished by the Republican-led Congress, or been forced to resign. It’s criminal, and they need to pay. "When they took our children from us,” one migrant mom said, “we thought that we weren't going to see them again. It was like a kidnapping."