03FirstladiesAbigail Adams, wife of the United States second president, John Adams, famously wrote to her husband in 1776 as he and other members of the Continental Congress considered formation of the newly emerging nation. She urged him to “remember the ladies” in the “new code of laws.” She knew – as women through the ages have known – that laws are necessary but that they must be humane and fair if people are to respect them. Humanity and kindness have not been much in evidence in our nation of late, and the world is watching with amazement, deep concern
and a changing view of the United States.

Recently, all five living U.S. first ladies – Rosalynn Carter, Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama and Melania Trump – have spoken out against the separation of immigrant children from their parents under Mrs. Trump’s husband’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. Each spoke forcefully, with Laura Bush calling the policy “cruel” and “immoral” in an op-ed in The Washington  Post. Trump – forgive me! – trumped her predecessors by flying to Texas to visit two child detention facilities to see for herself. She clearly intended to show a kinder and gentler side of the  Trump administration in contrast to both her husband’s family separation policy and his own words about immigrants, including “infest.”

Good for them! Mothers all, they understand with both their heads and their hearts that even the kindest and most capable strangers are no substitute for parents, especially for children too young to comprehend what has happened to them. President Trump has since rescinded the separation policy, but it is unclear to everyone how this will work. How will children who are released from detention get to parents who are still detained? Will our country detain children for long periods of time? Will we set up schools for detained children? Will some families never find each other again?

No one knows.

James A. Coan, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, wrote for The Washington Post about the ramifications of forced separation of children and parents. “At minimum, forced  separation will cause these children extreme emotional distress.” Quoting Nim Tottenham of Columbia University, he noted that “the sadness is not the thing that really matters here. What  matters is this is a trauma to a developing nervous system.” Coan added that “little minds and hearts can maintain that level of distress only for so long before the children face a horrifying decision: Continue, through severe emotional pain, to call out for their parents, or proceed on the assumption that their parents are gone.”

The latter choice means the children will mature more quickly, which results in “cognitive and emotional inflexibility later on, as well as the assumption that the world is extremely dangerous.”

Says Charles Nelson, a Harvard pediatrics professor, as such children grow into adults, they will be impaired in several ways – “direct weathering of their bodies and less effective problem-solving, impulse control and decision-making.”

President Trump has rescinded his family separation policy, but thousands of unaccompanied children remain in detention, and although confusion abounds, it appears that families will  continue to be detained.

The same day Melania Trump made her Texas visit, reports surfaced of detained children being given psychotropic drugs and restrained in chairs for hours, possibly days. In the meantime, organizations working on behalf of families are struggling to match children separated from their parents with their parents. Language complicates reunion, as does the tender age of children so  young or so traumatized that they cannot communicate any information about their families. Again, the same day as Mrs. Trump’s visit to Texas, federal health officials asked military bases to prepare space to house as many as 20,000 children.

Our first ladies are doing the right thing, but our Republican Congress is not listening. Partisan political concerns take precedence over the wellbeing of families, for which we should all be deeply troubled and ashamed.

This is not the America I know and love.

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