‘You just can’t erase them’: Migrant families separated at border get help to battle trauma
The nightmares and flashbacks are still there.
Before bed, the migrant mother of two triple-checks that the doors and windows in her home are locked as painful memories make their nightly rounds:
It was around 1 a.m., Maria recounted in a phone interview from her Orlando home. She and her 5-year-old daughter were sleeping side by side in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection jail cell days after the two had journeyed from El Salvador and illegally crossed the Texas border.
“They woke her up and just took her — snatched her,” Maria said of the 2018 incident when Customs agents took her daughter. “I never saw her again until two months later.”
She paused to hold back tears: “You just can’t erase them, the memories. I always worry that my kids will be taken in the middle of the night. ”
Due to the immigration status of the migrants interviewed for this story, the Miami Herald is not using their last names.
Maria is the parent of one of at least 2,700 children who were separated from their families at the border since 2017 under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. The policy, which ordered the prosecution of all parents caught crossing the border with children, was intended to deter illegal immigration and to encourage tougher legislation.
Parents were sent to jail and their children were detained in separate detention centers or foster homes for months at a time by the government, something a California federal judge ruled caused “psychological harm” to the separated families, calling it a “state-created danger.”
As a result, the judge mandated that the U.S. government pay for mental health services for those who were separated to battle mental trauma brought about by its policies.
That’s where Seneca Family of Agencies, a California-based nonprofit, comes in. The mental health and education group was contracted to connect families with therapists for mental health services in their respective cities.
Since March, coordinators with Seneca say they have connected with about 350 families out of about 2,500 across the United States who are potentially eligible for services. So far about 200 nationwide — 30 in Florida — have accepted the services, which will be available until June 2021.
“It’s challenging because there’s already a stigma when it comes to mental health,” said Seneca’s executive director, Paige Chan. “Especially now with COVID, mental health may not be the primary focus for families. Instead, staying physically healthy and making ends meet during this financial crisis might be.”
She added: “Combine that with the fear and distrust many of them carry.”
But fear hasn’t been the only hurdle mental health coordinators have had to overcome when trying to get families to accept the free help during a global health pandemic.
“Telehealth is challenging; it’s not the same as being in person, but we’ve had to make it work. Technology is also a big one since many of these families don’t have access to a phone, tablet or Wi-Fi networks,” said Johanna Navarro-Perez, one of Seneca’s program directors, noting that the organization had to fundraise to cover those extra costs.
The biggest challenge?
“Tracking families down,” Navarro-Perez added. To try to find families before the deadline, Seneca created a hotline, has partnered with legal and community-based organizations, and has even made videos of celebrities — like Pedro Pascal of “The Mandalorian” — highlighting the initiative.
“Many of the families are unfindable; they go off the grid and become ghosts. Some of their last known addresses were actually detention centers.”
Servando was one of them. The now 38-year-old father crossed the border in May 2018 with his teenage son after being denied asylum twice, he says.
“That’s when they grabbed me,” he said. “That’s when they separated me and my child and things remain complicated.”
Until this day, they’ve never seen each other again, speaking only on the phone. According to Servando, who lives in Orlando, social workers in Michigan, where his son was detained, told the teen “he’d be able to stay in the country if he confessed that he was abused in his home country.”
“Up until I started therapy, he wouldn’t talk to me. But now, it’s been about a month that I’ve been able to develop better communication skills to cultivate a better relationship with my son. We have conversations of joy. They taught me how to confront and battle what we went through and taught me that I can use trauma for good.”
He added: “I wrestled guilt for even coming to this country because I lost my son. But through therapy that’s being redeemed.”
According to Vanessa Ramirez, who leads the migrant mental health program at Kristi House, the main mental health care provider in Miami working with Seneca, psychologists paired with parents or children use “culturally modified trauma-focused treatment,” a culturally adapted intervention based on trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy developed for use with Hispanic children.
“We basically make sure that we incorporate culture, that we bring in cultural aspects like values, rituals, religion into therapy in order to help strengthen the family relationships,” Ramirez said.
“Sometimes we incorporate different dichos [Spanish for “sayings”], or different Bible verses or Spanish proverbs to help process trauma and build resilience,” she added.
Ramirez said most, if not all, of the clients, have backgrounds of having experienced violence, sex abuse or physical abuse in addition to the family separation: “What we see generally see is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, major depressive disorders and anxiety disorders and childhood traumatic separation.”
If not treated, those issues could turn into psychiatric disorders or develop long-term mental health issues like chronic depression, substance abuse issues or suicide, Ramirez said.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says that information about the families discovered by Seneca is not shared with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or any other government agencies.
“It’s a gamble I had to take,” Maria, the migrant who had been separated from her daughter, said. “When they knocked on my door I thought it was ICE, but what it really was was hope.”
Migrant families separated at the border can access mental health services by emailing info@todoporlafamilia.org or calling or texting Seneca’s confidential and toll-free hotline at 844-529-3327.
This story was originally published September 1, 2020 at 10:36 AM.
