Public policy can affect the ability of families and caregivers to foster attachment as well, either by supporting or disrupting attachments. These policies may affect attachment intentionally or consequentially, and in some cases policies can cause family attachments and security to become collateral damage. Let’s look at some ways that policy affects parent-child attachment.

4.5.1 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

On November 20th, 1989, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted and opened for signature, becoming officially effective on September 2nd, 1990. This document is a human rights treaty which outlines a child’s right to areas such as protection, identity, health care, shelter, nutrition, non-discrimination, and education (Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989). A total of 196 countries have adopted this convention, making it one of the most widely adopted human rights treaties in history. However, while the United States participated in the creation of the convention and signed the treaty to acknowledge approval for its content, it is the only member of the United Nations which has not ratified and adopted it into practice.

In order for a treaty to be ratified in the United States, the president must submit the treaty to the Senate, where it requires a two-thirds vote. If the treaty is approved by the Senate, it is then passed back to the president who can then ratify it. To date, no American president has submitted this treaty to the Senate.

4.5.3 Disrupted Attachment at the U.S. – Mexico Border

On May 7, 2018, a “zero tolerance policy” was announced by the U.S. Attorney General which only addressed unauthorized entry to the United States without acknowledging that many people who cross the border have legal and legitimate asylum claims (Sessions, 2018).This order that separated adults and children from one another was applied both to families attempting to immigrate to the United States who have not yet achieved an authorized status as well as those who came to the border with valid asylum claims.

The section of the policy targeted towards separating families was modified by executive order on June 20, 2018 to promote keeping families together throughout criminal and immigration proceedings, however this order did not attempt to reunify families who had already been separated. Over the course of that 44 days, over 5,000 families had already been separated, and many adult caregivers were deported without their dependents.

It was not until 958 days later, on February 2nd, 2021, that the Zero Tolerance Policy was officially rescinded and replaced by the “Executive Order on the Establishment of Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families” (Biden, 2021). In essence, this new order intends to protect family unity and establish a task force to assist families who are still separated. At the time this new order was signed, approximately 20 percent of families who had been affected by the previous orders were still separated (Biden, 2021).

Evidence presented in the court case Ms. L. vs. U.S Immigration & Customs Enforcement details how forced separation of families is traumatic for adults and children alike; it includes evidence regarding the consequences of separation which, especially for younger children, can be dire (Ms. L. v. U.S Immigration & Customs Enforcement, 2018). According to the research conducted by Harlow, Ainsworth, and Bowlby bonds must be formed with a primary caregiver and will last throughout all stages of life, and also states that attachment at an early age is considered foundational to future bonds with friends, families and partners/spouses. Additionally, if we look at Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development, stages for both the caregiver and the child would be disrupted. For the child this disruption would be due to the inability of the primary caregiver to provide adequate support due to separation, and for the caregiver this could contribute to feelings of failure, regret, and despair that could persist and present long after the situation is resolved.

In children, disruption of attachment can lead to developmental delays, decreased psychological development, and mental health disorders such as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and anxiety disorders. Additionally, extreme levels of stress and trauma, such as which is present during forceful separation of families, has been shown to have the capacity to cause physical changes to the body in areas such as brain development and formation of organ systems. Therefore, this trauma can potentially lead to altered brain development and cognitive impairment. Children who experience traumatic events also tend to experience poverty and food insecurity at higher rates.

Apart from the physical, mental, and developmental health risks, non-citizen children who have been removed from their families can experience unstable care settings due to families not having available support systems to provide care for the children, or the support systems which are in place may be difficult to contact. However it has been shown that any separation of a child from their family increases their susceptibility for exploitation or abuse.

The following New York Times video provides a firsthand look into the impacts of separation on a family who came to the U.S./Mexico border seeking asylum, but were separated at the border under the “Zero Tolerance Policy” in 2018 (Figure 4.20). It also explores similar experiences from two other families in the same village.

Figure 4.20. Inside a Young Migrant’s Family Separation Nightmare | NYT News [YouTube Video]. Watch this video to understand the separation nightmare that families experience.

4.5.4 Disrupted Attachment during the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the Covid-19 pandemic, borders between many countries as well as some states were closed or heavily regulated in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus. One unintentional consequence of these border closures is the separation of families who commute across state lines or who were traveling otherwise prior to these closures. The borders between both the United States and Mexico, as well as the United States and Canada were closed to all nonessential travel starting in March 2020, and are expected to continue through at least the end of May 2021 for Canada, and June 2021 for Mexico.

Closures such as these were not unique to the United States as many countries around the world also closed their borders to combat the spread of the virus. In fact, as of May 2021, there are still at least 173 unaccompanied minors in India who have been separated from their primary caregivers due to travel restrictions put in place by their home country of Australia; many of these were staying with relatives prior to the border closures and were too young to be considered for government-sponsored repatriation flights (Wertheimer, 2021). You can read more about this story here.

In the following sections we will discuss families with particular challenges and characteristics using the ecological model.

4.5.5 Immigrant and Refugee Families

Now we will look at how the ecological systems theory proposed by Uri Bronfenbrenner can be applied to current families. The ecological framework assumes that families interact within multiple environments that mutually influence each other. These environments include the microsystem (the systems in immediate surroundings, such as family, neighborhood, work, or school), the mesosystem (the ways in which these immediate systems connect, such as the relationships between neighborhood and school), the exosystem (the larger social system, such as the stress of another family member’s job), the macrosystem (cultural values of the local and larger community), and the chronosystem (such as immigration policy that influences access, and changes over time) (Ballard et al., 2019).

In the context of a refugee family, the family might be influenced by their microsystem (e.g., whether or not members were injured as they fled the persecution and parental conflict while fleeing), their mesosystem (e.g., teachers and school personnel who are struggling with their own trauma from fleeing conflict or personal troubles and thus their ability to provide robust services being impaired), their exosystem (e.g., local leaders who do not consult with women living in shelters regarding their resources needs and don’t provide feminine hygiene products or children’s toys), and countless other environments (Hoffman & Kruczek, 2011). The family may have access to and be able to directly influence their mesosystem and at the same time feel powerless to make changes in the exosystem. Each of these environments will contribute to their coping.

Figure 4.21. Protesting is one way that people can influence their macrosystems and chronosystems.

With its focus on interaction within multiple environments, the ecological systems framework is an incredibly useful lens to employ cross-cultural contexts such as when considering immigrant families. For example, a researcher could ask, “How do Hmong immigrant families manage financial resources in their new environment in the United States?” and “How did Hmong families manage their financial resources while still living in Laos?” The theory helps us to understand that immigrant families are operating within more complex systems, because they have lived in more than one dominant culture. The needs, values, and environment within each culture are important to the family (Solheim & Yang, 2010).

The family system has certain needs, including physical needs for resources and interpersonal needs for relationships. Parenting children is one of those primary needs. If their current situation is not meeting these needs, the family system will engage in management to meet these needs within their value systems.

4.5.6 Justice-Involved Families

Having a family member who is “justice-involved” (any interaction with the justice system as a defendant) creates family stress; this is discussed in Chapter 11. Here we will focus specifically on how incarceration affects the nurturing relationships between parents and children.

There is a growing recognition that incarceration has significant negative effects on the family structure, a notable point given that over half of the 2.5 million individuals incarcerated in the United States are parents (Aaron & Dallaire, 2010; Maruschak et al., 2021). Over the last several decades, researchers have started to parse apart how periods of incarceration influence the children and family members left behind. This work has demonstrated the long-term consequences that incarceration can have on the family unit. Scholars have also offered potential remedies to lessen the consequences to children, such as parenting courses during periods of incarceration.

Separation from children, due to incarceration or other factors, represents a significant acute and long-term stressor (Beckmeyer & Arditti, 2014). There is evidence that such separation is linked to institutional misconduct (e.g., violating institutional rules) and psychiatric distress among incarcerated parents (Loper et al., 2009; Houck & Loper, 2002). The extent to which separation distress contributes to such risk may be dependent on a number of other factors, such as availability of an alternative caregiver, support within the institution, and the nature of parent–child relationships prior to incarceration (Arditti, 2016).

It is also important to explore gender role differences within the context of incarceration. Women tend to take on a larger role in terms of childcare duties prior to involvement with the criminal justice system and are more often primary caretakers of children than men. Therefore, mothers who are incarcerated may experience great stress associated with child separation (McBride et al., 2002; Pedersen, 2012).

Within the parent-child dyad, both individuals experience significant changes to their microsystem when a parent is incarcerated. The parent is replaced by an alternative caregiver(s) in the child’s life. The parent themself does not likely have such a replacement (someone to care for on a daily basis.) In addition, the home environment changes dramatically for the parent, and possibly for the child as well. There is an additional institution—a very powerful one—in the parent’s life, which becomes part of the child’s exosystem. How well does this new institution interact with the other important aspects of the child’s life—their school, their caregiver’s workplace, their place of worship, and other structures? Jails and prisons are known for the rigidity of policies, including those that involve family visits. It is highly likely that the child’s mesosystem, or the ways that the various institutions within their lives interact well with one another, has become more difficult and complicated. Systems-level barriers (e.g., the institution itself) and interpersonal barriers (e.g., the relationship with the caregiver) affect the extent to which parents can have contact with their children.

The after-effects of incarceration including multiple transitions and increased unemployment continue to impact parenting and other nurturing relationships within kinship groups.

4.5.8 References

1. Attorney General Sessions Delivers Remarks Discussing the Immigration Enforcement Actions of the Trump Administration. (2018, May 07). Retrieved from https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-sessions-delivers-remarks-discussing-immigration-enforcement-actions

2. Biden Took 3 More Executive Actions on Immigration. Did He Go Far Enough? (2021, February 03). Retrieved from https://immigrationimpact.com/2021/02/03/immigration-executive-orders-february-2021/

3. Executive Order on the Establishment of Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families. (2021, February 03). Retrieved from https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/02/02/executive-order-the-establishment-of-interagency-task-force-on-the-reunification-of-families/

4. Hon. Dana M. Sabraw, U. S. (2018, June 26). Ms. L. v. U.S Immigration & Customs Enforcement. Retrieved from https://casetext.com/case/ms-l-v-us-immigration-customs-enforcement

Wertheimer, Tiffany. “India’s Covid Pandemic: Girl, 5, Separated from Family by Australia Restrictions.” BBC News, BBC, 7 May 2021, www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-57019857.

Haile, A. (2015). The scandal of refugee family reunification. Boston College Law Review, 56(1). Retrieved from: http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclr/vol56/iss1/7/

“Convention on the Rights of the Child.” UNICEF, www.unicef.org/child-rights-convention.