TIME is reporting that there are at least three special centers in use for detaining infants and toddlers "seized" at the border.
Rachel Maddow broke down and cried on the air as she reported this.
The American Academy of Pediatrics is one of 90 organizations, representing over 9,300 professionals, who have petitioned the government to stop family separation because of the lasting harm it's likely to do to young, traumatized c
hild
ren:
From decades of research and direct clinical experience, we know that the impact of disrupted attachment manifests not only in overwhelming fear and panic at the time of the separation, but that there is a strong likelihood that these children's behavioral, psychological, interpersonal, and cognitive trajectories will also be affected. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network, which is funded in part by the Department of Health and Human Services, notes that children may develop post traumatic responses following separation from their parents and specifically lists immigration and parental deportation as situations of potentially traumatic separation. To pretend that separated children do not grow up with the shrapnel of this traumatic experience embedded in their minds is to disregard everything we know about child development, the brain, and trauma.
AAP President Collen Kraft visited one of the shelters, where she found to her horror that the staff was not allowed to touch or comfort the inmates in any way.
Someone has hooked up a PA system to play that recording of crying chil
dren (the one where one of the guards laughingly calls them the "orchestra") at the Trump Hotel in DC.
May god have mercy on the souls of the people responsible for this policy - if they have souls.
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