NYC volunteers describe trauma 'in ways I had never seen it before' among separated immigrant families
The New York Daily NewsSep 18, 2018
"This week I saw PTSD in ways I had never seen it before," Blanco, the supervisor of child adolescent psychology for Health + Hospitals said Monday at a
Blanco was part of a team of city workers, including Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Bitta Mostofi, who spent a week volunteering in
Many of those parents and children had been separated for weeks or months -- some of the children they met had been brought to
"I had a little girl who has been detained for a very long time. When I asked her as part of the clinical interview, 'So, what's your favorite animal?' She looked at me and said, 'Una mariposa.' I said why? 'Por que puede salir de aqui volando,'" Blanco said. "A butterfly. Because it can get out of here by flying."
"Her pictures didn't have feet. They speak of the helplessness," she continued.
The city wound up with the largest population of separated children outside of the border states this summer, drawing ire from elected officials here who opposed the separation policy and who struggled to get information from the federal government about where, exactly, the children were. All but about 40 of the children brought to
The city announced at the press conference that it would earmark
But for many, lasting damage has been done -- and that damage can also harm their immigration cases. Blanco recalled parents so traumatized they struggled to be able to participate in their own asylum cases.
"They had nightmares, they weren't able to sleep, they experienced intrusive thoughts, traumatic recollections and the inability to concentrate on anything else except when am I going to see my child again? And no one was giving them right information," Blanco said. "And now we're asking these women to participate in the advocacy that was going to get them asylym, an impossible task, and all you can think of is: 'They told me my baby now belongs to the government.'"
Mostofi, the immigration affairs commissioner, said her week in
"I met mothers who had been separated from their children all of whom would start by saying 51, 52, 53 -- the number of days they were apart from their children," she said.
While many of those families had now been reunited, they all remained detained.
"Separating children from their families is horrific and it runs counter to who we are as a city and a country," she said. "Holding families in indefinite detention is not an acceptable alternative."
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