Immigrant shelters drug traumatized teenagers without consent

[Judi Lynn]

Caroline Chen and Jess Ramirez, ProPublica Published 12:04 p.m. ET July 20, 2018

Fleeing an abusive stepfather in El Salvador, Gabriela headed for Oakland, California, where her grandfather had promised to take her in. When the teenager reached the U.S. border in January 2017, she was brought to a federally funded shelter in Texas.

Initially, staff described her as receptive and resilient. But as she was shuttled from one Texas shelter to another, she became increasingly depressed. Without consulting her grandfather, or her mother in El Salvador, shelter staff have prescribed numerous medications for her, including two psychotropic drugs whose labels warn of increased suicidal behavior in adolescents, according to court documents. Still languishing in a shelter after 18 months, the 17-year-old doesn’t want to take the medications, but she does anyway, because staff at one facility told her she wouldn’t be released until she is considered psychologically sound.

Gabriela’s experience epitomizes a problem that the Trump administration’s practice of family separation exacerbated: the failure of government-funded facilities to seek informed consent before medicating immigrant teenagers. Around 12,000 undocumented minors are in custody of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. The majority crossed the border unaccompanied, while more than 2,500 were separated from their parents while Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy was in effect from April to June.

Emotional distress and mental health issues are prevalent among these children, sometimes a result of traumatic experiences in their home countries, at other times triggered by being separated from parents at the border, or by fear that they will never be released from ORR facilities. Former shelter employees, and doctors and lawyers working for advocacy groups say the shelters lack sufficient counselors and too often turn to powerful psychotropic drugs when kids act out.

More:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/20/immigrant-shelters-drug-teens-separated-parents-without-consent/807183002/

[procon]

1. It reads like a Hollywood movie script.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

[Ohiogal]

2. This is just totally appalling.

I can't believe this is going on in our country in the year 2018. WTF is wrong with this cruel administration!

[Haggis for Breakfast]

3. maybe the bigger question is

Why IN THE BLUE FUCK are we tolerating this being done in the guise of protecting us from the dangerous immigrants ?