A 13 year old and ICE

Weeks ago I wrote about 13 and 17 year old sisters who went missing in the world after ICE abducted their mother from a Worcester, Massachusetts street, leaving them parentless and in state care. Today I come back to you with a story of another Massachusetts 13 year old, another child victim of ICE’s campaign of terror. But in this case, we know where his mother is. The 13 year old is the one who was disappeared by ICE.

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On October 9th, Josiele Berto got a call from the Everett, Massachusetts Police Department asking her to come pick up her 13 year old son after an incident with the police. After waiting for over an hour, she was told that her son was taken by ICE. As she told the Boston Globe: “My world collapsed”. She then learned that her child, a 7th grader, was sent to a detention facility in Virginia, over 500 miles away from her.

From the Globe article: “The 13-year-old’s mother said her son has called her crying from the Virginia facility, where he’s sleeping on concrete with an aluminum sheet as a blanket, she said. Berto said her son’s foot is healing since he broke it while riding a bike recently. She’s worried about his physical health because he’s in pain, and he said he had little to eat.”

The teen and his family are Brazilian nationals with a pending asylum case and the authority to work legally in the United States. Their status didn’t protect them. Nor did the child’s age. As the mom was waiting at the police station to pick up her son, she saw ICE agents enter the building, indicating that they took him while she sat only feet away. Even her physical presence couldn’t protect her son from being abducted and sent across state lines. And not just one state. By the time an immigration lawyer filed a petition for his release in federal court in Boston, he was already gone — first to a facility in Vermont and then to another in Virginia.

It’s worth noting that if a parent took a minor child across state lines without the permission of the other parent, that would be considered kidnapping. But I guess that’s okay when it’s the federal government.

In the aftermath of the abduction, ICE officials posted about the teen’s arrest multiple times on social media, which is unto itself shocking. Remember, this is a child. To make matters worse, a Department of Homeland Security official posted that the child was a “public safety threat” and was in possession of a gun as well as a knife. The gun possession claim has since been refuted both by Everett’s mayor and police department.

So let’s boil this down. The federal government was using social media to spread lies about the arrest of a middle school student. The very thing we tell middle school students not to do: spread lies on social media.

To be clear, possession of a knife is a serious issue. Any 13 year old who is carrying a weapon should get whatever help and support they need, and they should be held accountable — with compassion — if they cause harm. But kidnapping, and then using lies to justify the kidnapping, is an absolutely mind boggling response. One that has likely caused lasting trauma to a child, his mother, and his community.

This child was kidnapped on October 9th. The end of October is approaching, and he is still not home — his ordeal continues. On October 24th, the Boston Globe ran a piece about his “apology” to the court.

From the piece:

“The Everett 13-year-old whose arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement earlier this month sparked a series of questions over local police interactions with immigration authorities asked a court to forgive him, and apologized ‘for everything,’ according to his attorney Andrew Lattarulo.

The teen showed up on a Zoom screen from a nondescript room in the Northwest Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Va., to appear for a bond hearing before an immigration judge in Annandale, Va. His request for release was rejected, and he must remain at the Virginia facility while his immigration case proceeds. A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 5.

He looked disheveled; his eyes swollen, his expression downcast. It was believed to be his first appearance in a courtroom since his arrest by Everett police on Oct. 9, for allegedly carrying a knife and threatening another student. A federal judge ordered that the bond hearing be held after the teenager’s lawyer filed a petition to release him… Lattarulo said the teen, who he said appeared very sad throughout the hearing, told the court he misses his mother in Everett.”

My goodness, what are we doing?

A report from the American Bar Association notes the traumatic impact of separating a child from their parent. The report provides a picture of the comprehensive harm caused by such separation for children placed in out of home care. It notes that children removed are “overwhelmed with feelings of abandonment, rejection, worthlessness, guilt, and helplessness”. That stress hormones flood a child’s body and lead to physical health challenges, permanent changes in their brains, increased depression and suicidality, and most dramatically, decreased longevity. And that’s for children placed in foster care or group homes, venues that are at least theoretically supposed to be equipped to house children. This child is being incarcerated, and the data tells us so much about the lasting damage that incarceration causes to young people’s health and wellbeing. To make matters event worse, the first Globe article I linked above indicated that he was being held alongside adults. The negative impact of imprisoning children in adult facilities cannot be overstated. Just one statistic: a recent study found that the suicide rate for youth held in adult jails is 7.7 times higher than that those held in juvenile detention centers.

I repeat, what are we doing here?

This case is starting to get national attention, and I am glad for that. Violence thrives in silence, and we absolutely have to turn up the volume about the violence our own government is committing. And we need to state clearly, loudly, and constantly that our government’s campaign of terror against immigrants is also a form of severe child abuse.

As a clinical social worker, I am legally mandated to file a report with child protective services when I see violence or neglect perpetrated against a minor. I see it. I see it right in front of my eyes. I have the documentation, multiple articles I could submit to support my report.

But who do I call? Where can I submit my report? How do I make this stop??

I desperately hope this child is released and reunited with his mother immediately. But even if he is, I need folks to understand that even if his incarceration ends, his trauma won’t. What feels like forever ago, I wrote a piece anticipating the impending inauguration and worrying about what a second Trump administration might do to harm immigrants. How U.S. citizens have a right to disagree with immigration policy, but no right to traumatize immigrants. And now here we are, less than a year later, witnessing Trump’s evil regime cause more trauma than we can possibly quantify.

Including to a 13 year old from a community not far from where I sit now, typing away in the safety of a home not targeted by ICE. Writing this post, because I can’t write a child abuse report to submit to some entity that might have some power to make it stop,

Which is why we have to use all the power we have as individual citizens of the United States to collectively call for the violence to stop. Educate the people around us so they understand the depth of the violence and trauma caused by our very own government. Holler as loudly as we can about how our government is a perpetrator of child abuse and none of us should turn away from it.

I have no place to submit my report but with all of you. I hope you will take it and do whatever you can to call for this child to be brought home, and to try to protect every other child from the rampant abuse of Trump and his regime.

This child will never get to be the same child he was before he was abducted. His immigrant peers must be wondering if they could be next. Parents across the country are worrying over whether they can protect their children from the horrors of the armed ICE agents who patrol their communities looking for their next victim. ICE agents driven by hate and the never ending quotas set by Stephen Miller and his henchmen. I implore you to call it what it is:

State sanctioned child abuse, financed by our very own tax dollars.