Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America’s Children
and ended up missing several assignments and grades. Only some of her teachers allowed her to make up the work. Another high school student had good attendance and grades prior to the raid, but afterward his academic performance deteriorated. This student was eventually arrested for shoplifting groceries in an apparent attempt to help his mother feed the family. Respondents in the schools told us that the majority of children recovered academically a few months after the raid. However, due to the study’s short time frame (just two to six months following the raids), the longer-term impact on children’s behavior and schooling could not be assessed.
EMOTIONAL TRAUMA HEALTH ISSUES
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PSYCHOLOGICAL
Although children can be resilient under difficult and unstable circumstances, the severe disruptions caused by the raids in the three study sites led to behavioral problems and psychological distress for some children. Separation from arrested parents caused emotional trauma in some children, especially because it happened suddenly and unexpectedly. The trauma of separation was greater when it continued for an extended period of time. Community-wide fear and social isolation accentuated the psychological impact on children. Yet, few parents sought or received mental health care for themselves or their children. Psychological impact of separation. Perhaps the greatest impact on children was the emotional trauma that followed separation from one or both parents. One of the major challenges for the parents who were not arrested was how to explain to their children the separation of a missing parent and manage their emotions. For children, especially very young children, the sudden loss of a parent played out like a “disappearance” and threatened their sense of security. The parents left behind struggled over whether and how to explain the disappearance, as well as how much hope to offer for a resolution. Most of the older children were either told what happened by the remaining parent or heard about it from other sources. In a number of cases, though, parents told their children other stories, which often seemed unsatisfactory to the children. Some parents or caregivers said that the missing parent had to stay away at work for a long period of time; others said that the missing parent was visiting family in their country of origin.
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