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SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Detaining immigrant women and children who may have fled violence in their home country "creates or exacerbates" psychological trauma, according to a complaint filed Tuesday by immigrant rights groups with the Department of Homeland Security.
The complaint asks for the agency's Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to investigate 10 cases where mental health professionals who were contracted by attorneys attested to psychological issues, including anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts among detained women and children.
The complaint also asks for a complete investigation into the effects family detention has had on the more than 6,300 women and children at one of the four facilities that opened last year in response to tens of thousands of Central Americans crossing the Texas-Mexico border. Two centers are in South Texas, one is in Pennsylvania and a fourth in New Mexico closed last November.
U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement said on-site providers have identified mental health problems, but the issues may be "pre-existing" and not related to detention. Most of the women and their children in the complaint have since been released.
"This policy started so quickly last summer that no one has taken the time to investigate the psychological consequences, and that is a real failure on our government's part," said Karen Lucas, associate director of advocacy at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. That group, the Women's Refugee Commission and the American Immigration Council filed the complaint.
ICE spokeswoman Gillian M. Christensen said in a statement that the agency takes the health and welfare of detainees seriously and that the centers are "an effective and humane alternative for maintaining family unity as families go through immigration proceedings or await return to their home countries."
"Individuals housed in our family residential facilities receive timely and appropriate medical and mental health care," she said.
There have been fewer border crossings this year, and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced last week the end of long-term detention for women and children, approving a plan that would offer appropriate and reasonable bond amounts for families at the centers who can present a credible case that they fear persecution in their home countries.
South of San Antonio, the 50-acre campus in Dilley — and, to a lesser extent, the Karnes City facility — boast of a number of amenities not usually found at detention centers, such as soccer fields, gymnasiums, libraries and high-tech classrooms. There are 2,311 women and children being held in the two facilities, according to ICE.
"They have tried to make these places look and feel better but ultimately they are still behind walls and they don't have freedom," said Luis H. Zayas, a psychologist who has examined women and children in both Texas facilities and is cited in the complaint.
It's not easy to extrapolate from the few cases cited in the report, but research shows that even short periods of detention can compromise a child's development and cause illness, Zayas said, though long-term detention results in the most problems. He saw "regression behavior" in some children who had been detained for several months to a year, including an 8-year-old girl who attempted to breast feed again and an 11-year-old boy who began urinating in his bed.
Other examples cited among the 10 cases are children who became aggressive or suddenly started clinging to their mothers; others have had nightmares or suffered from various illnesses, including constant vomiting and headaches. The children constantly ask when they will be released, the complaint said.
"We've seen depression is the most common one. Part of the depression is a sense of hopelessness," said Zayas, who is also the dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin.
The mothers describe horrific acts of gang violence, domestic abuse, rape and ethnic persecution in their home countries. They are often diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and their symptoms are often described as being exacerbated by detention, according to the complaint.
Margaret Bassett, with the Institute of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote about a Guatemalan woman who fled with her infant son after receiving repeated death threats from her father-in-law.
"The fear, uncertainty and lack of control" of detention mimics her life in Guatemala, Bassett wrote, "forcing her to re-experience her trauma on a daily basis."
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Seth Robbins can be reached at https://twitter.com/serobbins
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