The National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP) strongly opposes the Administration’s plan to reopen the South Texas Family Residential Center and any other immigrant child and/or family detention facilities. Not only does such action increase the likelihood for detained children to experience severe short-and long-term physical and mental health effects, it violates the Flores Settlement Agreement (FSA), a 1997 agreement that set national standards for the care of unaccompanied and accompanied immigrant children in U.S. custody. The FSA has been upheld by federal courts in multiple legal challenges.

NAPNAP joined other leading pediatric organizations repeatedly challenging the first Trump Administration’s detention of children, including meeting with the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security, advocating on Capitol Hill and participating in a federal amicus brief. At the time, investigators found overcrowding and unsanitary conditions that led to at least seven child deaths in detention centers. A later analysis of health records conducted by the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University and other groups reported inadequate staffing, supervision, and documentation of medical care; inappropriate screening and follow-up care for existing chronic medical conditions, malnutrition, and tuberculosis; and inappropriate mental health screening.

Evidence shows that detention facilities for unaccompanied and accompanied immigrant children are dangerous, if not deadly. NAPNAP urges the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to work with NAPNAP and our fellow child health and advocacy groups to establish evidence-based protocols to care for immigrant children and families to safe-guard against traumatic stress and other poor physical and mental health outcomes.

 

March 6, 2025