First 5's Position on Current U.S. Immigration Policy Impacting Families
June 19th, 2018
As an organization that advocates for California’s youngest children, First 5 is deeply concerned about the forced separation of parents from children as part of U.S. immigration policy. There is abundant evidence that the trauma of disrupting the parent-child relationship through forced separations puts children’s physical, mental, and developmental health at risk. The effects of this trauma are deep and long-ranging and, for many children, additive to the considerable trauma of fleeing one’s home country due to violence, persecution or poverty.
We join with the scores of advocates and experts in early childhood development, child welfare, child protection, and juvenile justice in calling for an immediate end to this practice of forcibly separating children from their parents at the U.S. border. To read the letter that 540 organizations, including First 5 Association, signed and sent to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, click on the link: https://bit.ly/2LtKOHE