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The Trump administration as part of its cruel and inhumane immigration policies is forcibly separating children from immigrant families -- many of whom are legally seeking asylum in the United States. In addition to the pain and uncertainty that these families are going through, this form of separation will likely be actively harmful to the long-term health of these children. The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Colleen Kraft, has said that “By separating parents and children, we are doing irreparable harm to these children. The long-term concern of what we call toxic stress is that brains are not developed efficiently or effectively [...] and these children go on to have behavior problems, to have long-term medical problems." Some parents are being deported without their children, only adding to the uncertainty.

There is a long history of children being forcibly removed from families by authoritarian government forces or with state approval, whether children of enslaved people and Native Americans in the US, Aboriginal children in Australia, or families destroyed by the Holocaust. As scientists, it is our responsibility to speak to the evidence and actively call out policies that are destructive and harmful.

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