COLUMBIA HEIGHTS, Minn. — The little girl approached the therapy dog outside the school library, reaching out to touch her fluffy blond coat. Social worker Nicole Herje leaned in.
“How does it feel when you pet Sage?” Herje said.
“I like it,” the girl said. “In Ecuador, I had a dog.”
A few months earlier, this girl and many of her classmates at Valley View Elementary were staying off the streets to avoid the immigration officers flooding their suburban Minneapolis community. Attendance plummeted as families kept their kids from school during the Trump administration’s enforcement surge.
Sage the goldendoodle is not just a cute diversion. She’s part of a broader strategy to address the psychological wounds of children who witnessed arrests, lost relatives to deportation or endured anxious weeks indoors. At least four students at the school were detained and sent hundreds of miles away to a Texas family detention center.
Federal immigration officers made more than 4,000 arrests and shot multiple people, two fatally, before Operation Metro Surge wound down in February, leaving an imprint on the psyches of young children that could haunt them for years, mental health providers say.
Columbia Heights Public Schools, like many other districts, offered virtual learning for children who remained at home during the crackdown, but online schooling ended after spring break, and with many back in class, the staff has been focused on their recovery.
“What we know about trauma is that our bodies hold on to the fear,” Herje said.
That’s why, in the middle of their virtual school day, Herje led kindergartners in a special class on emotions. They shared what made them happy and sad, calm and angry. They talked about missing their classmates and longing to return to school.
“Anyone want to raise your hand and tell us something that makes you feel happy?” Herje asked.
“When I’m happy, I want to go to school when I see my friends,” said one girl.
Herje followed up: What made them sad?
“When my grandma, she go [to] Ecuador,” another girl said.
All had lived through one of the most aggressive immigration crackdowns in history. There were the arrests of tearful and screaming immigrants, captured on video and played on endless loops across social media. In many cases, parents were taken away.
A growing body of research is illuminating the effect of trauma on children, even those too young to understand. Prolonged exposure to a high-stress environment can reshape a baby’s brain, explained Rebecca Parlakian, the senior director of programs at early childhood advocacy group Zero to Three.
“When a child is experiencing sustained and consistent traumatic experiences where they have lost the sense of basic safety, we see that the brain reorganizes itself for survival, which actually translates to structural anatomical changes in the brain,” Parlakian said.
Trauma signs include lack of appetite, fear of sleeping alone
The symptoms of trauma can vary widely depending on the child, their age and what they’ve witnessed or experienced. Robyn Tabibi, a family physician in St. Paul who often works with expectant parents, said she treated a 3-year-old who had lost several relatives to deportation and had to move homes with his mother to avoid being targeted.
“He gradually stopped eating, became listless, refused to play anymore,” Tabibi said. “He’s in this new space, and he is so traumatized.”
The fear that courses through immigrant families — even those here legally — could have profound consequences for a generation of American schoolchildren, experts say.
The Brookings Institution estimates 4.6 million U.S. citizen children live with a parent who is undocumented or has temporary legal status, and more than 200,000 have parents who were detained or deported during this Trump administration.
“Children in mixed-status families often live with chronic anticipatory anxiety that a loved one could be detained or deported,” a group of psychiatrists wrote in a special report for Psychiatric News. “These fears have been shown to lead to school absenteeism, academic disengagement, and heightened emotional distress.”
Valley View staff have identified students who may need extra help. Herje ran group therapy sessions alongside Sage the goldendoodle for these students.
Returning to school is what many really needed. Herje has witnessed joyful reunions between young friends who hadn’t seen each other in person for months.
Herje asked them back then what makes them feel loved. One girl piped up: “When I’m in love, I find my best friend.”
Balingit writes for the Associated Press and reported from Washington and Steiner writes for Minnpost.
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