Immigration Detention Impacts Families, Causes Trauma

In Brief

The White House administration in March announced it is bringing back the already discredited policy of detaining immigrant and migrant families together at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.

The plan is to detain up to 2,400 families in Dilley, NASW Senior Policy Adviser Mel Wilson wrote in a blog post at SocialWorkBlog.org.

“The decision is both alarming and horrible,” he stated. “It represents a return of one of the nation’s immigration policies which—at times—bordered on being inhumane. Family detention policy, which has not been used in four years, has been widely condemned.”

Yet, in another demonstration of its insensitivity to human needs, the Trump administration has decided to go full speed ahead with expanding immigration detention, Wilson pointed out. In fact, the expansion at Dilley—which is operated by private contractor CoreCivic—is only one of many other family detention centers planned at least through 2025.

Wilson explained that numerous studies have shown the psychologically damaging effects of family detention.

Medical and early childhood trauma professionals have noted that family detention is especially harmful to children.