Children Are Being Harmed. Our Responsibility Is Clear.
______________________________________________________________________________________ A Statement from ECFC Executive Director Shannon L. Rudisill
Children across this country are being exposed to fear, trauma, and violence that no child should ever experience. Protecting children is a shared and sacred responsibility. Decades of child development research show that trauma and chronic stress in early childhood have lifelong consequences for physical health, mental health, and the future well-being of families and communities.
How a society treats its children is one measure of its moral and civic health. Right now, we are failing that test.
Recent abusive tactics by immigration authorities have inflicted profound harm on children and families: six children, including a six-month-old baby, tear-gassed while riding in a car on the way home from a basketball game; a five-year-old boy taken by masked agents and used as leverage to detain his father; a two-year-old girl detained and flown out of state with her parent despite a court order requiring her release.
Families belong together. Children do not belong in detention.
Medical and child welfare experts have been clear that there is no safe or acceptable amount of time for children to be held in immigration detention, even when detained with a parent. This consensus is reflected in an amicus brief submitted by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the National Association of Social Workers, which documents the severe and lasting harm detention causes to children’s development and mental health. Yet since the federal government resumed the practice of family detention, thousands of children have been confined in facilities where advocates report unsafe and unsanitary conditions, sleep deprivation, and inadequate medical care. These harms can permanently alter a child’s life trajectory.
The impact of these actions extends far beyond the cases reported in the news. Children are disappearing from classrooms because families are afraid to leave their homes. Parents are forced into impossible choices between going to work to feed their families and risking detention without due process. Young children are internalizing fear at an age when their world should be defined by safety and care. As one grandmother recently shared, her elementary school grandchild described classmates discussing where they could hide on the playground if armed men appeared.
At the Early Childhood Funders Collaborative, we are laser-focused on young children and their families. We are hearing directly from partners in our network, particularly in Minnesota, Ohio, and Oregon, where child care providers, including Somali early care and education providers who have been targeted in racist attacks, have experienced harassment, fear, and disruption. Through our work with the Raising Child Care Fund and the Racial Justice and Equity Fund, we also know that many families have already been living with the reality of separation and detention long before these recent events. These experiences deepen the urgency of this moment and underscore what is at stake for children and the people who care for them.
This is not the first time our country has failed children in this way. From the separation of enslaved families, to the forced removal of Native children to boarding schools, to the incarceration of Japanese American families during World War II, our history reminds us that state-sanctioned harm to children leaves lasting scars. We study this history not to dwell in it, but to do better.
As we approach the 250th year of this nation, we face a defining democratic choice. A true democracy protects children, upholds due process, and refuses to govern through fear. Child care, schools, and houses of worship must be safe and protected. We must keep families together and ensure that policies and practices reflect what we know to be true: children need safety, stability, and care to survive and to flourish.
Children are not collateral. We, as adults, need to put them first.
Shannon L. Rudisill, Executive Director