Arrests of immigrant parents create mental health crisis for children

Los Angeles — Damian Zermeño, 15, sensed something was wrong the moment he got home from school.

His aunt sat at the dining table, sobbing. His father, who'd walked him to the bus stop that morning and promised to take him to dinner when he got back, wasn't there.

Saúl Zermeño, a 45-year-old single dad, had gone to a routine check-in appointment at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office that morning, a requirement he'd complied with for years. The father had deferred action that allowed him to stay and work in the U.S., according to his attorney. But that day, Oct. 3, officers deported him to Mexico, where he hadn't lived since he was 9 years old. Zermeño had been Damian's sole caregiver since he was a baby because his mother chose not to be involved in the boy's life, the family said.

Suddenly, Damian, who was born in the U.S., found himself separated from his father by thousands of miles and a heavily guarded border. The previously cheerful 10th grader, who doesn't have a driver's license and can make a few basic dishes but isn't used to cooking for himself, faced navigating his teenage years alone, his dad's presence reduced to a two-dimensional image on his phone.

"I thought it wasn't true," Damian said. "I just went to my room. I didn't want to leave. I didn't even want to eat."

Damian is among an estimated hundreds of thousands of children, most of them U.S. citizens, separated from a parent by the Trump administration's deportation policies. Their mothers and fathers have been deported or locked for months inside detention centers, often miles away from where their families live. These children are separated, sometimes violently, from the adults they depend on. Parents have been arrested while dropping kids off at school, inside their homes, and at immigration check-ins with their children present. Most people detained have no criminal conviction. (Being in the U.S. without authorization is typically a civil offense). With their parents gone, kids' lives are plunged into fear and uncertainty.

As a result, a generation of children from immigrant families are exhibiting mental health problems that could affect them for years.

Parents, therapists, and others who work with immigrant families said they've already encountered preschoolers with speech delays, elementary school children who talk of suicide, and teenagers too anxious to leave the house. Research has shown repeatedly that separating children from their parents harms their health and development. The stress of losing a primary caregiver creates havoc in a child's brain and body