State Department Report Cites Psychological Risks of Separating Children From Families
- Report says separating children from families is damaging
- Family separation should only be ‘temporary, last resort’
A section of a U.S.-Mexico border wall in Tijuana, Mexico.
Photographer: Alejandro Cegarra/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
An annual State Department report on human trafficking bolstered criticism of the Trump administration’s policy -- since suspended -- of prosecuting all adults entering the U.S. illegally from Mexico and separating them from their children.
The “2018 Trafficking In Persons Report” released Thursday cited the psychological risks of separating children from their families, even though President Donald Trump made that U.S. policy until an outcry prompted him to reverse his approach. A federal judge then ordered the government to reunite more than 2,000 immigrant children who were separated from their families at border crossings and to stop detaining parents without their children.