Separated children will suffer long-term harm if not reunited

Amid all the confusion about zero tolerance and executive orders over the crisis at the border, one thing is clear. At least 2,000 children are still detained away from their parents in shelters across the country. Many — no one knows exactly how many — are under age 5 housed in “Tender Age” shelters in South Texas. Government officials claim they are safe and well cared-for, but nothing could be further from the truth. Years of research shows us that group care is harmful to children of all ages and especially toxic for infants and young children.

Officials defend these facilities, saying that shelters provide nutrition, hygiene and medical care.

This isn’t enough. Children need consistent and individualized care from loving adults. Deprived of these experiences, a young child’s development is derailed. Group-care facilities, with constantly changing shiftcare staff, cannot provide this care.

Studies of children in institutions show the long-lasting harm caused by these conditions. One of these, the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, provided definitive proof of differences in children being raised in institutions to those removed and placed with families. Children in facilities lagged behind children in families as measured by IQ, language, growth, social abilities, and serious emotional and behavioral problems. These children also were shown to have structural and functional changes in their brains that were associated with subsequent health and mental health difficulties.

These young children at the border have had multiple traumatic experiences even before being separated from their parents. For young children, parents provide an essential protective shield to buffer them from the effects of trauma and help them maintain feelings of safety. Separating children from parents removes their most important protection while it inflicts additional trauma. Just when children need parents most, they are completely deprived of consistent caring relationships.

Any delay in reunifying these babies with their parents is unacceptable. Every day the likelihood that they will suffer long-term harm increases.

CHARLES H. ZEANAH AND CAROLE SHAUFFER, NEW ORLEANS Editor’s note: Zeanah is the Mary Peters Sellars-Polchow chair in psychiatry at the Tulane University School of Medicine. Shauffer is the senior director for Strategic Initiatives at the Youth Law Center.