A Practical Temporary Solution to Child Detention Camps

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Children are children no matter where they live. They are humanities precious future, and every country is ultimately obligated to secure the safety and welfare of every child under its jurisdiction regardless of citizenship status or how that child got there.

The Trump administration's unconstitutional policy of arresting and incarcerating asylum seekers coming into the United States from South and Central America has created a humanitarian crisis. This crisis is especially traumatic for children who become separated from their families because of their parents' criminal incarceration. Thousands of separated children are languishing in over-crowed holding areas under inhumane conditions. They are not receiving age-appropriate care or supervision while their incarcerated parents are being held in prison-like settings for months without judicial reviews of their asylum claims. These children need immediate relief, which the federal government is incapable of providing.

The obvious over-all solution is to follow the law and keep the families of asylum seekers intact at all times. We must stop arresting these parents for requesting asylum, which is an internationally protected human right. Until that happens, what can we do to end the immediate crisis for tender aged children whose parents are incarcerated, or in some cases already deported without their child? These children need immediate, but temporary home-based care. They need temporary caregivers who can hold them, comfort them and meet all their physical and emotional needs. They need frequent and ample visitation with their parents to maintain healthy emotional bonding. And they need to be permanently reunited with their parents as quickly as possible, even if their parents have already been deported without them. 

Just because an immigrant parent has been deported doesn't mean an unaccompanied child left here can't be returned to them or to another responsible relative in their country of origin.

I use to have to make these sorts of international arrangements in my career in a state child welfare agency. When a foreign-born child came into state custody, for whatever reasons, we would seek out parents or relatives here or in their home country. If the best or only option was a relative in a foreign country, we would work with the social service authorities in that country to arrange a safe return home.

These foreign countries in all had social service agencies who would work with us and conduct a home study of the parents or interested relatives, when located, to make sure we weren't returning the child to a dangerous situation, such as a child prostitute ring or whatever. Then we would arrange for the child to go back to live with the responsible relatives. Each case was reviewed by a judge before the child was returned to make sure we were doing our job.

If there were no safe or viable alternatives in here or in the country of origin, the child would remain here to be raised by foster parents, and hopefully, be adopted. All 50 states have similar policies, procedures and resources in place for this humane handling of unaccompanied minors, but the current federal authorities aren't utilizing (or supplementing) these well-established state resources to assist with the crisis at the border.

For just a fraction of the money, the federal government is currently spending to warehouse these children in horrendous conditions, the administration could distribute these children equitably across all 50 state child welfare agencies and provide sufficient funding per child to compensate the states for the additional staff and resources the states would need to build capacity to do the job they already do now so successfully.