This year, after mounting pressure from activists, the N.C. Advisory Committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is investigating civil rights violations in the family regulation system. Alongside coalition partners, Emancipate NC’s Margaux Lander recruited panelists to ensure the Committee hears from impacted people, as well as from advocates with a holistic perspective on the harms of involuntary family separation. The first panel, “Researcher & Academic Perspectives,” took place on July 12. Laura Matthews Jolly, from North Carolina Central School of Law, and Miriam Mack, from the Bronx Defenders, presented their research and expertise to the Advisory Committee.
From Miriam Mack’s testimony to the Committee:
The data also show that family policing does not prevent abuse and trauma, indeed it is the source of abuse and trauma. Studies show that separating children from their families causes long-lasting disruption and harm. Even if young children are eventually reunified with their parents […] they can experience traumatic stress and other lifelong consequences as a result of separation. Many of these negative outcomes are connected to placement within the foster system… And it is important not to underestimate the profound harmful impact that stems from living under persistent state scrutiny and the threat of family separation.
From Laura Matthews-Jolly’s testimony to the Committee:
The American Association of Pediatrics has explained that family separation “can cause irreparable harm, disrupting a child’s brain architecture and affecting his or her short- and long- term health.” Research has established that when comparing children who face the risk of removal but remain in their parent’s care to children who are actually removed from their parent’s care and placed in the foster system—the children separated from their families and placed in the foster system experience higher likelihood of criminal legal involvement, substance abuse, dropping out of school and becoming homeless.
Yesterday, the Committee heard the “Advocate and Community Organization Perspective.” Emancipate NC Organizer and an impacted parent, Toia Potts, presented her testimony.
There are thousands and thousands of children and parents who do love each other and can be together safely and they are just waiting and waiting and waiting to be reunified while all these processes and paperwork and court dates go on for years at a time. And then the bond is weakened and the State uses it against parents, which then negatively affects the children.
Follow along with the Committee and tune into the upcoming panels here →