“All I want to do, is Forget”

Does detention center cause trauma? To find out the answer, we did some research.

According to the Quartz, Charles Nelson, a pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School who

conducted a landmark study of Romanian orphans in 2000 that is still ongoing, previously told

Quartz that “the longer a child spends in an adverse or neglectful environment, the more difficult

it will be to shift that child’s developmental trajectory back to even keel.” Separation also

triggers children’s stress response in a sustained and dangerous way. Although the Trump

administration ended its separation policy in June, more than 12,000 children remain in custody,

many of them housed in temporary facilities operated by Southwest Key, a charity that operates

migrant shelters in Texas, Arizona, and California. But Southwest Key centers have been

accused of hundreds of violations of state codes, ranging from poor medical care to child abuse,

and the company failed to prove that it conducts the required background checks on all its

child-care workers. Now, the Department of Justice is investigating Southwest Key for possible

financial crimes uncovered in a New York Times investigation (paywall).

So far we have visited sal castro middle school and interviewed three young girls. One

girl shared her story which encouraged the others to share their story as well. Also in our 12

grade class we interviewed three student that went through a similar experience but one person

went through it with his sister as well. Our hypothesis is that detention centers do cause trauma.

We have created a survey to interview the kids who went to detention centers.

The population are the young kids who went to detention centers. The sample is the kids

who were in detention center and are now attending Global Studies High school or Sal Castro
Middle school. We intend to study the kids who got caught migrating for a better future and

getting sent to detention centers. What happened to young kids after getting caught migrating?

Those who got caught either went to a detention center by the border or got sent back to their

country. We intend to interview those who have experience being in detention centers. We want

to know if detention centers cause trauma? Some say, that detention centers cause trauma

because those in the detention center do not know what day it is or not being able to see the

sunlight or the moonlight. Most of the times they are really worried because they don’t know

what to expect and spend their time overthinking of what can happen next.

The results are that young kids sometimes migrate with their parents. Most of the kids we

interviewed migrated alone. They saw how kids from age 4 years and up got separated from their

parents and how younger than 4 years old were able to stay with their mom.The kids were never

aloud to go outside and if they did they would make them stand in a line and count them and

when they came back in they would count them again. Some got transfer from one place to

another because it was getting full. The buildings looked really big and even colder than a

hospital.

Most of the undocumented teens come from Central America. Some of the reasons they migrate

is because of poverty and war. Most of the young kids who didn’t go through difficult times were

able to speak up and talk about their experience since they weren’t so long in detention centers.

But the ones that went through a harsh time didn't not want to be interviewed. ¨………..¨
KEY WORDS

❏ Trauma
❏ Detention center/ Heliera
❏ Family separation
❏ Rules

Detention center