What’s next for kids taken into custody?

A political and moral battle is underway at our borders, and children and families are caught in the crossfire. Despite President Trump’s signing of an executive order rescinding the policy of separating immigrant children from their families, the future of these families — and the children who have been separated from their parents — remains an issue that must be addressed.

Since Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the zero tolerance policy on April 6, more than 2,300 infants, toddlers, school-aged children and teenagers have been separated from their parents, a practice that the American Academy of Pediatrics has labeled as “nothing less than government-sanctioned child abuse.” Once a child is separated, that child is labeled an “unaccompanied minor alien” and falls under the care of the U.S. Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. In effect, the federal government is now the acting guardian of these children.

The rapid influx of children into an already overwhelmed system has led the federal government to house them in facilities that were never designed for them, such as an abandoned Walmart in Brownsville and three so-called “tender age” shelters in Combes, Raymondville and Brownsville in southern Texas. Other tent cities are under construction, where the conditions are not likely to ameliorate the trauma children have experienced or provide the resources they may need.

As CEOs of, respectively, an organization that works with immigrant families in Texas and a network of human services organizations reaching thousands of communities and working on the front lines of building, maintaining and restoring the well-being of families, we can attest to the fact that the federal government is ill-equipped to take on this responsibility alone.

What we are seeing on the ground is extremely disturbing. As media outlets are reporting, some parents were tricked into releasing their children into custody by being told they are being taken away to bathe. One father, who was hugging his daughter and didn’t want to let go, told us that an ICE officer threatened to remove him forcibly and criminally charge him if he didn’t let go of his child. Another father was told his 6-year-old daughter would be waiting for him after his court appearance, but when he returned, his daughter was gone. He didn’t have the chance to say goodbye or even explain to her what was happening.

At adult detention centers, the hotlines set up for parents to stay in touch with their children while being processed are ineffective, when anyone answers at all. Often, written requests to ICE from parent detainees go unanswered. Some children have been flown to other states without their parents’ knowledge.

Some desperate parents are even willing to be deported back to their country in order to be reunited with their child — only to find out after being deported that their child remains in the United States. It is unclear if the government has the ability to reunite families.

Consider the likelihood, under these circumstances, for children already separated from their parents to be lost in the system with little chance of being reunited.

There are many questions left unanswered.

Will the children currently in custody be reunited with their families in a timely manner, if at all? How will children be reunited? How will our government repair the trauma that has been inflicted?

If families will now be retained together, do we have the appropriate facilities to house them?

How is the reopening of the Flores settlement going to impact children?

How is our government going to ensure that there is fair treatment for families seeking asylum in the United States?

We cannot emphasize enough the damage that has been done already and is being done to these children. Traumatic separation from families can have a profound and lasting impact on a child’s health, both physical and behavioral, over their lifetime.

We urge the administration to immediately release separated parents and children and reunify them. Children who are detained with their parents should have access to a safe environment appropriate for families, including ageappropriate education, trauma-informed mental health and family-based legal and immigration counseling.

We also urge Congress to immediately put into place the laws, processes and resources that will ensure the health, safety and well-being of all children. We stand ready, as members of the community-based nonprofit human services sector, to work with Congress and the administration to find humane solutions and implement them.

Aguirre is president and CEO of BakerRipley, the largest community development organization in Texas providing community-based programs including immigration services across the Houston region. Dreyfus is president and CEO of the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, a strategic action network of hundreds of social sector organizations across the nation.