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In the News Kids Are The Biggest Losers In Immigration Raids

By Pat Young
Program Director, CARECEN
October 31, 2007 4:36 PM

I was talking to a U.S. citizen who witnessed one of the well-publicized raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last month on Long Island. Her poignant description of a toddler crying as his father was thrown to the ground by ICE agents has stuck in my mind long after other details of the raid have begun to fade.

With a 700% increase in raids since 2003, someone is finally looking at the impact these home invasions have on the kids caught in ICE's web.

The non-partisan Urban Institute has published the first major study of the impact of raids on the children of the undocumented. With nearly five million kids in America having at least one undocumented parent, the future impact of raids on our next generation will be staggering.

When Nassau Police execute a warrant for arrest, one of their primary concerns in advance of the raid is ascertaining whether children will be present on the scene and making sure that appropriate social service back-up is provided to those left behind. Minimizing harm to the innocent is standard police practice. As Long Islanders found out last month, ICE has no similar scruples.

ICE raids at homes on Long Island traumatized children who watched their parents man-handled by heavily armed agents. The raids were marked by a near-complete disregard for the well-being of the children in the household. In one case, a baby was left unattended for more than an hour after its parent was arrested.

ICE raids at workplaces have resulted in children arriving home from school to find no one there to take care of them.

From the Urban Institute Study:

Following procedures designed to intimidate detainees into surrendering their rights as quickly as possible, many "arrestees signed voluntary departure papers and left the country before they could contact immigration lawyers, their families, or - in one of the sites - their home country consulates. Detained immigrants had very limited access to telephones to communicate with their families, and many were moved to remote detention facilities out of the states in which they were arrested."

This leaves many children wondering for hours or even days where their parents are, whether they have died or simply disappeared.

Nassau County got a rash of missing persons reports following the September raids, from families desperate to know what had happened to a loved one. ICE's refusal to cooperate with the local police and even confirm the names of those arrested left the Nassau cops unable to answer the primal question "Where's my daddy?"

The report tells us the story of the children as they sink into psychological and economic collapse:

"After the arrest or disappearance of their parents, children experienced feelings of abandonment and showed symptoms of emotional trauma, psychological duress, and mental health problems. Many lacked stability in child care and supervision. Families continued hiding and feared arrest if they ventured outside, increasing social isolation over time. Immigrant communities faced the fear of future raids, backlash from non-immigrants, and the stigma of being labeled 'illegal'. The combination of fear, isolation, and economic hardship induced mental health problems such as depression, separation anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidal thoughts."

These deep psychological wounds were not caused by bad genes, lead paint on Chinese imports, or mercury in vaccines, but by policies designed by politicians hoping to win votes by getting tough on illegals.

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