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Children should not be separated from their families at the border

A kid wakes up thinking that they are just going for a ride and then all of a sudden

their mom and dad are getting taken away, his mom is in tears and his dad is fighting trying to

get his kid back. The kid is in a cage getting treated like animals, crying to see his mom and dad.

He is getting fed food that looks disgusting and probably bad for their health and to think there

are multiple kids that this is happening to them every day of the week. They are sleeping in

thermal type covers that look like foil and are like five-foot long and they´re sleeping on the

floor all crammed up with the rest of the kids that are sleeping their not having space to sleep

comfortably. Parents are probably worried about their kid thinking about what they should do to

get them back but This is why I think children should not be separated at the border because the

kid is going to have some mental issues later in the future.

Imagine you were in that position and are not able to see your kid and are going through

that you will probably freak out but this is real people and it is happening to people all around

the world that are trying to cross the border. There is currently 15 ICE facility that is detaining

immigrants all around the United States. The US authorities are detaining and prosecuting the

people that are attempting to cross the border illegally also the people that are leaving their

countries that have a lot of violence. There are parents that are being charged with a crime but

their kids are not, which lead to them being separated from their families there are 2,000 kids

that are being taken to the detention centers. “According to Business insider ¨Almost 1,500 boys

between the age of 10 and 17 have been crammed into one shelter inside a former Walmart in
Brownsville, Texas. Jacob Soboroff, a reporter who visited that facility, described the boys as

¨incarcerated¨ because they were eating in shifts, had just 40 square feet of living space, and

spent only two hours outside each day”(Soboroff 2018). The Trump administration is currently

making a building also known as “tent cities” close to the border to hold all the undocumented

kids who arrive in the US. ​Separating children at the border should be illegal because it will

cause emotional and psychological abuse for the children and families, and it's also

inhumane, and it's costly to keep the children detention facilities running.

A reason why separating children at the border should be illegal is because it will cause

emotional and psychological abuse for the kids and families because snatching the kids from

their mother will scar them for life and they can probably hurt the kids too, for example there

was this Honduran man that took his own life because he was separated from his wife and 3-year

old son, it can seriously cause a lot of damage to your mental health and will have emotional

problems. Dr. Lisa Fortuna is a child and adolescent psychiatry at Boston Medical Center told

Business Insider that “in situations of stress, the only way that children can cope is if they have a

caregiver with them that's taking care of them and that's there to protect them."The removal of a

caregiver can create acute distress that harms a child's ability to cope and self-soothe, which can

lead to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Invulnerable developing brains,

that can be especially harmful.”(Fortuna 2018). The brain in children that has been thru that kind

of trauma and experience can cause them to develop the fear part of their brain which is called

amygdala and hippocampus to develop differently. “That can alter their emotional experiences

for the rest of their lives, Fortuna explained and put a child "at higher risk for ongoing anxiety,

depression, PTSD as they get older"(Fortuna 2018). Inside the facility's people have experienced
physical abuse according to Laurie Heffron, an assistant professor of social work at St. Edward

University in Austin, Texas, works with immigrants and women who have experienced domestic

and sexual violence. (Heffron 2018).

Another reason why separating children at the border should be illegal​ ​is because it is

inhumane cause they are separating little children from their mother and father and it can cause

them to have health issues in the future. The public health professional knows that children that

are living without their parents can cause them to have immediate and long-term health

consequences. Risks include the acute mental trauma of separation, the loss of critical health

information that only parents would know about their children’s health status, and in the case of

breastfeeding children, the significant loss of maternal child bonding essential for normal

development. Parents’ health would also be affected by this unjust separation (American Public

Health Association 2018). There is no law requiring the separation of parents and children at the

border.

This policy violates fundamental human rights. We urge the administration to

immediately stop the practice of separating immigrant children and parents and ensure those who

have been separated are rapidly reunited, to ensure the health and well-being of these children.

(American Public Health Association 2018). The current US government has enacted a ¨zero

tolrence¨ policy of separating families at the US-Mexico border and these families are migrating

from violence and extreme poverty from their native lands.

I have 3 baby sister that I care for and love, I'm always there for them when they need

me. I will pick the oldest sister up from her bus walk her home talk about how she is doing in
school. There are kids that are half my little sister's age that is being taken from their moms and

they do not have a clue where they are probably thousands of miles away. This is unbearable and

should not be happening in our country. One does not have to be a parent, a politician, or a

physician to be outraged. No matter one's view on immigration reform, and knows that what they

are doing is a barbaric and cruel practice of separating families. Separating families is a violation

of human right and should be universally and undoubtedly guilty for their actions.

Another reason that separating children at the border should be illegal is because it will

be more costly to keep them separated than keeping them together because the will have to pay

for more space and more item for them to keep their hygiene good and the health good. To hold a

person in an ORR shelter care and to keep them in good health and alive is 248$ per day and in

average a person stays in ORR custody for 34 days. ¨By multiplying these figures together, we

can estimate that a policy of separating families would cost taxpayers $327 million per year¨ says

American progress.org. It costs $775 (£586) per night, per child, to be detained in the new tent

cities facilities, NBC News reported, citing Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

officials. But they should just send them back to where they came from and drop them off there

instead of keeping them incarcerated and separated from there families cause this will really tear

their family up if they don't get to see each other. There is money that the united states could

save and build 20 new elementary schools, hire more than 6,000 more new kindergarten and

elementary school teachers, and also pay the yearly in-state tuition for nearly 34,000 people to

attend public four-year colleges.¨One Health and Human Services (HHS) official told NBC

News the agency is “aggressively looking for potential sites” to build more tent cities, where

children are kept caged in and not allowed to contact their parents¨. We should not be doing this
type of detaining it will cost the US more money and there will have to be more responsible.

“The Trump Administration has decided to separate parents from children to dissuade parents

from seeking asylum in the US and pursue criminal convictions against them.

This graph is showing you how many people are there that have been going to these facilities at

the south-west border.

To be clear, dividing the children from their parents and them not being able to go with

them should be illegal because it is wrong and it will cost more for them to keep them in the

facility. They will have mental issues and won't be able to be independent because of that and

that can cause them to suffer more in the near future. This is a very important topic cause people

are trying to get away from all violence from their countries and trying to go to a better place like

the united states. It's important because there are families that are being killed and they don't

want that to happen to their kid in the near future so they migrate over here and to have their kid

getting taken away and won't know what happens to them will tear them apart and probably
won't recover from that. Our society should be aware of this because it can be happening to any

of your family members that live in a dangerous place and should deserve to know how they are

getting treated in there.

Works Cited

Chemerinsky, Erwin. “Trump's Child Separation Policy Is Immoral and Illegal. Can the ACLU

Make It Stop?” ​Sacbee,​ The Sacramento Bee,

www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article212540049.html.

Cumming-bruce, Nick. “Taking Migrant Children From Parents Is Illegal, U.N. Tells U.S.” ​The

New York Times​, The New York Times, 5 June 2018,

www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/world/americas/us-un-migrant-children-families.html.

Fredericks, Bob. “Cost of Detaining Migrant Kids Higher than Keeping them with Families.”

New York Post,​ New York Post, 20 June 2018,

nypost.com/2018/06/20/cost-of-detaining-migrant-kids-more-expensive-than-keeping-the

m-with-families/.

Juvonen, Jaana, and Jennifer Silvers. “Separating Children from Parents at the Border Isn't Just

Cruel. It's Torture.” ​The Washington Post​, WP Company, 15 May 2018,

www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/15/separating-children-from-

parents-at-the-border-isnt-just-cruel-its-torture/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6ddde3728608

Loria, Kevin. “Separating Kids from Parents at the Border Mirrors a 'Textbook Strategy' of

Domestic Abuse, Experts Say - and Causes Irreversible, Lifelong Damage.” ​Business
 Insider​, Business Insider, 20 June 2018,

www.businessinsider.com/psychological-effects-of-separating-immigrant-kids-and-parents

-2018-6.

“Migrant Children in the US: The Bigger Picture Explained.” ​BBC News​, BBC, 21 June 2018,

www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44532437.

“Reality Check: Who Decided to Take Away Children at the US Border?” ​BBC News,​ BBC, 19

June 2018, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44303556.

“Separating Parents and Children at US Border Is Inhumane and Sets the Stage for a Public

Health Crisis.” ​AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION​,

www.apha.org/news-and-media/news-releases/apha-news-releases/2018/parent-child-separ

ation.