“Kids know about kidnappings and they’re worried. This misplaced fear just spreads,” said Joanna Dreby, a sociology professor at the University at Albany. Dreby said she expects that anxiety to affect more children as they see and hear about violent events involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement, such as stories of American citizens being detained or shot. “As more and more children are exposed to these severe episodes, then more and more children will carry these fears,” Dreby said.
Research shows that children can exhibit disturbing behavior when their communities are targeted by immigration authorities, including increased aggression, separation anxiety and withdrawal.
Parents and early educators have long reported increased aggression, separation anxiety and withdrawal among children when administrations are stepping up immigration enforcementwith a worse effect on those who fear enforcement.
If this concern is left unaddressed, it can have long-term consequences. Childhood exposure to immigration authorities was found to lead to long-term anxietyPTSD and depression in adolescence and young adulthood. Young children are particularly vulnerable to trauma because their brains develop rapidly during the first five years of life, and this development can be greatly influenced by stress hormones.
Dreby, who has spent years interviewing and studying children who have survived immigration enforcement to some degree, said the longer enforcement continues, the more children can be affected. It is even more damaging if they witness arrests. “Unfortunately, some of the things that we found to be most harmful to children are the very tactics that federal immigration officials are using right now,” she said.
“There is absolutely no reason for immigration regulation to evolve in this way, which is very public, which is in front of children,” Dreby added. “This must stop immediately.”
Although parents can often serve as a trauma buffer, they may struggle to do so when they are also overly stressed and anxious. A 2021 A study of preschoolers in New York City, for example, found that when parents felt higher levels of threat from immigration enforcement, children showed lower levels of self-regulatory skills, particularly in their ability to pay attention. Children in these families also experience greater separation anxiety and overanxious behavior.
“Parental stress is certainly transmitted to children,” said Suma Sethi, senior policy analyst for immigration and immigrant families at the Center for Law and Social Policy. In her previous research, Sethi heard stories from children as young as 3 who said they were afraid of losing their parents to deportation. “It’s very obvious in their behavior that their stress is affecting them and it has long-term consequences,” she added.
While interviewing parents, child care providers and professionals who interact with children over the past six months, Sethi has heard widespread reports of children having trouble sleeping, showing fear of the police, regressing in skills like potty training and being more emotionally reactive. One respondent shared a story about a child who asked her mother to teach her how to cook so that the girl could eat only if her mother was deported. A child care provider told Sethi that children in her program used to be curious about visitors, but now hide behind their teacher when someone new enters the building.
In Minnesota, where ICE has been involved in violent confrontations over the past month, Sonya Meiren, a Minneapolis-based clinical intern who specializes in childhood trauma and works primarily with the Latino population, has seen a spike in anxiety among her patients. Many of the children he serves have regressed in their behavior. In recent months, all of her clients have moved their sessions online. A few have stopped therapy altogether.
Like Dreby, Mairen also hears of children who are afraid of immigration agents, even if their family is not at risk of enforcement. “It’s not just, ‘I’m afraid of ICE detaining my friends or family,’ it’s, ‘I’m afraid of ICE in general because they can come and hurt us,'” she said.
Mairen tells parents to be patient with children, try to shield them from the news and maintain a routine, especially if children have been pulled from school. She also encourages parents to seek mental health help to try to keep their children stable, with the caveat that they may not see much improvement in their children’s mental health as long as immigration crackdowns remain so aggressive and visible.
“Now we’re just keeping the kids’ heads above water because they’re in an emergency,” she said. “It’s just survival.”
