Every child in America is entitled to have spaces where they feel safe, cared for, and free. Those kinds of spaces not only help promote a child’s physical and emotional health, but they also create a foundation for more family-oriented development in our cities and towns. When communities are deprived of those spaces, everyone experiences the negative effect.
Recent ICE immigration enforcement activities in and around schools, playgrounds, churches, and parks — places meant for children’s safety and well-being — are actively undermining their sense of security. Whenever adults in masks and tactical gear appear, everyone, and especially children, feel less safe. Children are especially vulnerable to trauma from these kinds of enforcement activities because they do not understand what is happening or why; experiencing a reasonable fear that what they see happening to their peers and their families may happen to them.
KABOOM! recognizes the right of every nation to secure their borders and enforce their immigration laws. How those laws are enforced matters though. Protecting children and ensuring they feel safe is a responsibility all adults share. Creating an environment where fear prevents children from accessing essential spaces like schools, playgrounds, or places of worship, regardless of their family’s immigration status, is not a tactic we should resort to. There are safer and more effective ways to enforce our laws which do not rely on intimidation within spaces where children ought to feel safe.
We urge the administration to re-evaluate its enforcement activity policies as it relates to the places where children are the primary members of the community being supported. As ICE continues its work, we urge its leaders to consider the profound and lasting impression their approach has on our nation’s children, especially in the places where they learn and play.