'Heartlessness Mixed With Political Power': Trump Admin Rejected Plan to Provide Mental Healthcare to Separated Families

A woman is reunited with her four-year-old son at the El Paso International Airport on July 26, 2018 in El Paso, Texas. The mother and child were separated for one month when they crossed into the United States. Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty

Along with pushing the White House immigration policy which resulted in the separation of more than 5,400 children from their parents and guardians, policy adviser Stephen Miller pressured U.S. Justice Department lawyers out of accepting a settlement in 2019 which would have quickly connected reunified families with mental health services to help them heal from the trauma imposed by the Trump administration.

As NBC News reported Thursday, after months of negotiations, lawyers from the DOJ and the pro bono public interest law firm Public Counsel reached an agreement in October 2019, under which the federal government would pay $8 million for the counseling of migrant families.

“Many of these children thought their parents had deliberately abandoned them. The longer that trauma goes unredressed, the more severe the consequences.”
—Mark Rosenbaum, Public Counsel

According to three administration officials who spoke to NBC, the Office of White House […]