{"id":10575,"date":"2019-07-25T19:58:14","date_gmt":"2019-07-25T19:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=10575"},"modified":"2019-07-25T19:58:14","modified_gmt":"2019-07-25T19:58:14","slug":"move-to-treat-separation-detention-of-migrant-children-as-child-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=10575","title":{"rendered":"Move to Treat Separation, Detention of Migrant Children as Child Abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

A congressional investigation has found that nine migrant children younger than one year, and 18 younger than two years, have been forcibly separated from their families and held in detention. Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection\/Wikipedia<\/p><\/div>\n

by Dan Heyman<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

EL PASO, Texas \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0Social workers and mental health professionals are trying to have the detention of migrant children away from their families treated as child abuse.<\/p>\n

Almost 6,000 people have signed a\u00a0petition<\/a>\u00a0started by social workers to file a \u201creport of suspected abuse and neglect of migrant and refugee children\u201d locked up by the U.S. government.<\/p>\n

The administration of President Donald Trump describes the separation and detention policy as a \u201cdeterrent\u201d to families entering the country.<\/p>\n

But Fabiola Ekleberry, a counselor and psychotherapist in El Paso, says taking children from their parents is abusive, no matter the justification.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is abuse, what we\u2019re doing,\u201d she stresses. \u201cThis is not acceptable. It\u2019s like telling a kid, \u2018If you don\u2019t listen to me, I\u2019m going to beat you.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the kid still does something and then you beat them up. But you know what kind of pain you\u2019re going to inflict on them. That\u2019s still abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ekleberry says she is legally required to report it when anyone abuses a child.<\/p>\n

More than 3,000 migrant children have been forcibly separated and, at least for a time, detained. The administration has admitted it has not tracked and will have trouble reuniting some of the families.<\/p>\n

According to a recent\u00a0congressional investigation<\/a>, 18 infants and toddlers younger than two years old have been taken from their families. It found nine babies younger than one year old have been separated and detained.<\/p>\n

Mark Lusk, a University of Texas at El Paso professor of social work, describes that as unconscionable. He says it could harm the children for life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is particularly worrisome in the first and second year of life \u2013 creates separation anxiety, and confusion and anxiety in young children that is very, very hard to remediate,\u201d he states. \u201cIt can\u2019t be replaced by having other caregivers around. It\u2019s very alarming that this has been going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lusk says the policy has been condemned by the American Pediatric Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association, among others.<\/p>\n

He says many counselors would like to meet with the children for free, but no one outside the system is allowed into the detention centers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Dan Heyman EL PASO, Texas \u2013\u00a0Social workers and mental health professionals are trying to have the detention of migrant children away from their families treated as child abuse. Almost 6,000 people have signed a\u00a0petition\u00a0started by social workers to file a \u201creport of suspected abuse and neglect of migrant and refugee children\u201d locked up by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10578,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10575\/revisions\/10578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}