Impacts of Family Separation on Migrant Women & Children
Washington state is the 3rd largest refugee-receiving state in the nation where an estimated 15.3% of our population is foreign born (U.S. Department of State 2022 data). Data collected from the 2022 census shows that there are over 600,000 migrant women living in Washington state.
We are home to five of the 10 national resettlement agencies with offices located in Benton-Franklin, Clark, King, Pierce, Snohomish, Spokane and Whatcom counties. This gives us a distinct concentration of services offered to migrants and their families through government entities and community organizations.
In 2018, during the Trump administration’s policy of forced separation at the U.S.-Mexico border, 174 of the immigrants detained in Washington were women, and more than a third of these women were mothers separated from their children. Many of these women were in detention for more than a month and had not spoken to their children in weeks. The federal government did not provide them with any information about the location or well-being of their children.
According to the American Psychological Association, the trauma of family separation “threatens the mental and physical health of both the children and their caregivers” and negative impacts for children separated from their families include anxiety, depression, academic difficulties and disruptions in their development.
Further research is needed to understand the current status of family separation in Washington, the factors driving separation and the impacts on children, caregivers and their larger community. Much of the research investigates the impacts of children separated from their families, but more is needed to understand the impacts to women, mothers, and parents. As Jorge Barón, Executive Director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP) said in 2018 “some people may have gotten the erroneous impression that somehow the family separation policy has ended now [and] there’s at least 45 parents detained at either the Northwest Detention Center, or the Federal Detention Center here in our region, and they’re still not with their children. So as far as we’re concerned, the family separation is ongoing, and until that gets resolved, we’re going to continue fighting back.” La Resistencia, based in Tacoma, organizes individuals who are detained and their families and communities to fight for their rights and advance their campaign to shut down the detention center.
References
Aho, B. June 21, 2018. AG Ferguson to lead a multistate lawsuit challenging Trump Administration family separation policy. Press Release: Washington State Office of the Attorney General. https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-ferguson-lead-multistate-lawsuit-challenging-trump-administration-family
Beier, F., Fredericks, K. April 2023. “A Path to Meeting the Medical and Mental Health Needs of Unaccompanied Children in U.S. Communities.” Migration Policy Institute Report.
King County Immigrant and Refugee Task Force. July 7 2016. “Advancing Equity and Opportunity for King County Immigrants and Refugees” Report.” https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/~/media/Council/documents/Issues/IRTF/IRTF_July1.ashx
Migration Policy Institute (MPI) tabulation of FY 2015-2021 county-level data from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “Unaccompanied Children Information: UC Data,” www.hhs.gov/programs/social-services/unaccompanied-children/index.html