Advocating for asylum-seeking children is traumatic, new research finds

Photo courtesy of UC Merced website

Asylum-seeking children and their service providers, such as attorneys, educators and counselors nationwide have been affected by “legal trauma,” according to sociology professor Stephanie L. Canizales’ new and ongoing research. In an op/ed in the Washington Post, she notes that “[c]rafting the perfect victim… takes an emotional and mental toll on service providers” in an effort to make a winning case repeatedly in court. Since these effects “extend well beyond the border into the lives of immigrant families and across their social networks,” sociologists Cecilia Menjivar and Leisy Abrego define this trauma as ‘legal violence.’ Canizales adds that due to COVID-19 pandemic mandates: “[C]ase managers could not visit released children in their homes and [t]eachers were unable to engage children face to face in the classroom.”  

KJ