“Kids know people are being taken away, and they’re worried,” said Joanna Dreby, a professor of sociology at the University at Albany. “This diffuse fear is only going to spread.” Dreby said she expects this anxiety to affect more children as they see and hear about violence involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement, such as reports of U.S. citizens being detained or shot. “As more children experience these serious events, more and more children will live with these fears,” Draby said.
Research shows that when their communities are targeted by immigration enforcement, children may exhibit troubling behaviors, including increased aggression, separation anxiety, and withdrawal.
Parents and early educators have long reported increases in children’s aggression, separation anxiety and withdrawal when governments increase immigration enforcement, which can have more serious consequences for those who fear enforcement.
If this anxiety is not addressed, there may be long-term consequences. Studies have found that childhood exposure to immigration enforcement can lead to long-term anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression in adolescence and early adulthood. Young children are particularly vulnerable to trauma because their brains are developing rapidly during the first five years of life, and this development can be highly affected by stress hormones.
Draby, who has spent years interviewing and studying children who have experienced immigration enforcement to some extent, said the longer the enforcement goes on, the more children are affected. If they witness an arrest, it’s even more damaging. “Unfortunately, some of the practices we have found to be most harmful to children are the same tactics currently used by federal immigration enforcement agents,” she said.
“There is absolutely no reason why immigration policing has to unfold in this very public, in front of children,” Dreby added. “This needs to stop immediately.”
Although parents can often serve as buffers from trauma, they may have difficulty doing this when they are also overly stressed and anxious. For example, a 2021 study of New York City preschool students found that when parents perceived higher levels of threat from immigration enforcement, children showed lower levels of self-regulation skills, particularly in areas of attention. Children in these families also experience greater separation anxiety and excessively anxious behaviors.
“Parental stress is definitely passed on to children,” said Suma Sethi, senior policy analyst on immigration and immigrant families at the Center for Law and Social Policy. In her previous research, Seti has heard children as young as 3 say they feared being deported and losing their parents. “It’s clear from their behavior that stress is affecting them and that it can have long-term effects,” she added.
Over the past six months, while interviewing parents, child care providers and professionals who interact with children, Seti heard numerous reports of children having difficulty sleeping, exhibiting fear of the police, deteriorating skills such as toilet training, and becoming more emotionally reactive. One interviewee shared a story about a child who begged her mother to teach her how to cook so that if her mother was deported, the girl could feed herself. One child care provider told Sadie that children in her program used to be curious about visitors but now hide behind teachers when someone new enters the building.
In Minnesota, where violent encounters with ICE last month took place, Sonia Mayren, a clinical intern in Minneapolis who specializes in childhood trauma and works primarily with Latino populations, has seen a sharp rise in anxiety among her patients. Many of the children she served had behavioral regressions. In recent months, all of her clients have moved meetings online. Several people have stopped treatment altogether.
Like Draby, Mellen has heard from children worried about immigration agents, even when their families are not at risk from law enforcement. “It’s not just ‘I’m afraid of ICE detaining my friends or family members,’ but ‘I’m afraid of ICE in general because they might harm us,'” she said.
Mellen told parents to be patient with their children, try to protect them from the news and maintain daily routines, especially if children are withdrawn from school. She also encouraged parents to seek mental health assistance to try to keep their children stable, but with the caveat that they may not see much improvement in their children’s mental health while immigration enforcement remains so aggressive and visible.
“We’re just keeping the kids’ heads above water right now because they’re in an emergency situation,” she said. “It’s just survival.”
