Lives of Immigrant Children

Immigration has been affecting the United States of

America for years, but the only people that mostly get
the attention are the adults that are being deported. The
children are usually put on the back burner and not
talked about enough. No one ever seems to wonder what
it happening in the childs life before and after their
parents are deported.

The Struggle Everyday

The struggle that many of the children face everyday is having to deal with is leaving their
parents and hoping they will still be there. They deal with this stress as best as they can on their
own, because many undocumented parents tell their children to keep it a secret. The reason they
want it to be a secret is that there are people that will report them to the U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, I.C.E.
Then on top of that they are discriminated at school by both their peers and the teachers. The
peers usually call the children racial slurs based on what their nationality is and will not interact
with them during/after school. The teachers also have a heavy effect on the immigrant children.
The teachers will often not speak or even acknowledge the student and will often assume that the
child lacks intelligence. While the teacher does this many of the students in that class may notice
and will avoid the immigrant children based off of that fact alone. Also a big problem is that
when they do talk to the immigrant children they at times feel the need to belittle them and talk
to them as if they are 2 year-old, which then in return makes the child angry and causes them to
act out. Then unfortunately the children have to repeat this process over and over again everyday.

The Pain of Deportation

Imagine one day you come home from school and the house is empty and silent with no one
around. You look through the house and there is no note with any indication of where your
parents could be. Then picture a neighbor coming up to you and telling you that they are sorry,
but your parents have been taken by I.C.E. officers.
This is the cold reality that many immigrant children go through.
They either get picked up by a relative, not very often, or they get
sent to foster care. When they get sent to foster care more often than
anything else they will lose complete contact with their parents and
will never hear from them again. Though one would think that if they

have any relatives that live in the U,S, they can just go with them, but that isnt the case. Most
judges will say that the relative is a risk, because they are not legally allowed in the U.S. and
may get deported at any time. They get lost in the system and may never see their family again.

Think
Think about the children that have to live without their parents and are only separated by a
border that the government has built. Think about the tears that they shed every day that they are
stressed and often time lonely. Now tell do you think it is time for an immigration reform in
order to stop separating these families that should be together.

Works Cited

Dreby, J. (2012, August 20). How Today's Immigration Enforcement Policies Impact
Children, Families, and Communities. Retrieved March 8, 2016, from
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/report/2012/08/20/27082/howtodays-immigration-enforcement-policies-impact-children-families-and-communities/
Cecea, V. (2014, September 4). San Diego Free Press. Retrieved March 8, 2016, from
http://sandiegofreepress.org/2014/09/immigration-deportation-and-family-separation/
The Psychosocial Impact of Detention and Deportation on U.S. Migrant Children and
Families. (2013).The Psychosocial Impact of Detention and Deportation on U.S. Migrant
Children and Families, 1-15. Retrieved March 8, 2016, from
https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/centers/humanrights/doc/IACHR Report on
Pyschosocial Impact of Detention Deportation-FINAL 8-16-13.pdf.
Brown, C. S. (2015, September 18). The Educational, Psychological, and Social Impact of
Discrimination on the Immigrant Child. Retrieved March 8, 2016, from
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/educational-psychological-and-social-impactdiscrimination-immigrant-child
Effects of Immigration on Children. (n.d.). Retrieved March 8, 2016, from
https://sites.google.com/a/maricopa.edu/effects-of-immigration-on-children/

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