Pediatricians accuse the USA of “torturing” minor immigrants from Mexico

The United States’ treatment of immigrant minors on the country’s border with Mexico is “compatible with torture” as defined in multilateral agreements, a group of pediatricians defended this Friday.

The position, published in a document in the Official Gazette of the North American Academy of Pediatricians, ensures that the definition of torture against children is similar to the way in which the outgoing President Donald Trump’s government treats minor immigrants detained for trying to enter the country, especially when it comes to separating minors from their parents.

The ban on torture, especially against children, is part of the Geneva Agreements and the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel or Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), recalls the group of pediatricians.

Doctors do not hesitate to say that the treatment of children on the border with Mexico “meets the three criteria of torture”, according to CAT and the Rome Statute.

From the start, the treatment “intentionally inflicts severe physical and / or psychological pain or suffering” to children, with the trauma occurring with the “consent and / or acquiescence of the authorities” and that “is not only intentional but has a specific purpose, such as coercion, intimidation, punishment and / or deterrence “, they refer.

On this last point, the group of pediatricians recalls that the objective of the “zero tolerance” policy, launched in 2018 by the Trump Administration, included the separation of children from their families to deter illegal migrants from trying to enter the country.

Doctors also recalled that many children were kept in “unhealthy and dangerous conditions” and that, since 2018, at least seven minors have died in the custody of the authorities or immediately after being released.

As a result of this treatment, the doctors accuse, the children show “internalized and regressive traumatic behaviors”, which result in “generalized anxiety disorder, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide attempts”. And all this “sponsored by the state and directed by the President of the United States”, they denounce.

According to the group of pediatricians, “mitigating this trauma will require years of treatment and intense interventions”.

In the last fiscal year, 30,557 minors, mainly from the Central American region, who traveled without the company of their parents or a legal guardian, were detained at the border.

In addition to this figure, 52,230 more people were detained when they entered the country illegally in family groups (an adult accompanied by at least one minor).

In addition, thousands of children have been separated from their parents at the border by order of the Trump Administration, and although a 2018 court order forced them to reunify, more than 600 minors have yet to join their parents.

For all these reasons, the authors of the article ask pediatricians and child health professionals to take steps to “stop and prevent the torture of migrant children on the border” by investigating and publicizing the poor performance of politicians on this issue.

On the other hand, they ask the North American Academy of Pediatricians to issue a political declaration against child torture and against the separation of migrant families, and to bring a case against the United States in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

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