Advocating for Latinx Children’s Rights and Supporting Their Healing from Trauma: School Social Workers as Nepantleras

Abstract

United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet took an unusually direct approach on July 8, 2019, when she condemned the U.S. government’s treatment of migrant children (Cumming-Bruce, 2019). Bachelet stated that migrant children should not be placed in detention facilities and never be separated from their families. She also expressed her shock at the conditions in those facilities including severe overcrowding, little access to health care or food, poor sanitation, and children sleeping on floors in cold cages referred to as “ice boxes” by migrants (Bochenek, 2018). Bachelet warned that detaining children has serious consequences for their development and is causing damage every day. The Office of the Inspector General (2019) recently released a report noting that the situation in detention facilities is an “immediate risk to health and safety” and called for the Department of Homeland Security to take immediate steps to address the conditions and prolonged detention of children and adults.