PROTEKNON ENDORSES RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FAMILY REUNIFICATION IN THE US

Summary: The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, an interagency coalition of nearly 100 organizations working to protect children, calls upon the U.S. Government to take urgent action to rapidly reunify separated children with their families and end detention.

“Based on our collective experiences and lessons learned, we urge all responsible parties to facilitate rapid family reunification; provide mental health and psychosocial support to children and their families; ensure that administrative and legal procedures meet their best interests; and prevent further family separation by ending the use of detention,” says the statement.

The statement comes after at least 2,300 children were separated from their families at the southern U.S. border. While the recent executive order seeks to end family separation through family detention, it is not clear how already separated children will be safely reunited with their families.

“Both family separation and detention — unaccompanied or as a family — have proven toxic for children’s overall development and long-term well-being. The long-lasting damage to a child’s well-being starts almost immediately and increases with the duration of the separation or detention,” says the statement. All parties must take immediate action to protect children.

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