CHILDHOOD TRAUMA

Report: Some Reunited Migrant Kids Don’t Recognize Their Mothers

Reunions are tinged with sadness.

Some of the migrant kids separated from their families at the Mexican border have been apart from their mothers for so long that, when they’ve been reunited this week, they don’t recognize them. The New York Times reports that one mother who had been apart from her 3-year-old son for four months said he cried when they were reunited. “He didn’t recognize me,” said Mirce Alba Lopez, 31. “My joy turned temporarily to sadness.” Milka Pablo, 35, said her 3-year-old daughter, Darly, screamed and tried to wiggle free from her when they were reunited. “I want Miss. I want Miss,” Darly reportedly said, calling for the social worker at the shelter where she had been living since the mother and daughter were separated by federal agents at the border. Some mothers also claim their kids have forgotten their potty training during the separation and are wrongly identifying the kids they were in shelters with as their brothers and sisters.