Pediatric Anesthesiology 2018 Reviews
Friday Session III
AAP Advocacy Lecture: Unique Healthcare Challenges in Immigrant and Refugee Children
Reviewed by Lisa Wise-Faberowski, MD
Stanford University
Along with Dr. Minenette Son, Dr. Marsha Griffin is cofounder of the children’s advocacy group, Community for Children. The program offers leadership development through a four-week immigration immersion program along the Rio Grande border for interested students and faculty.
Approximately 50 million people across the world immigrate yearly, 50%, due to violence. 3.7 million of these immigrants come to the United States. The United States is currently home to 1/5 of the world’s total immigrants. 43.7 million immigrants currently reside in the United States and account for 13.5% of the total population. Fourteen states within the United States, including CA, TX, NY, FL and NJ are home to the majority of immigrants. If you include their children born in the United States that number increases to 86.4 million or 27% of the U.S. population. Eighty percent of U.S. immigrants cross along the southern border of Texas.
It is not illegal to come across the border to seek asylum. Family units from El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico and other countries reach the Rio Grande sector. From 2015-2017 this number has grown from 39,838 in 2015 to 75,622 in 2017 and the number of children has increased from 23,708 to 41,435 respectively.
Pediatricians from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley provide healthcare services to these children once they cross the border. The children are separated from their parents and placed in age-differentiated fenced in areas within the border complex. Many have fled from the Reynosa gang in Tamaulipas and have undergone a significant amount of family separation, emotional and physical abuse prior to their arrival. The Karnes Family Detention Center is a family residential unit for females and children in order to provide them with skills that will allow them to survive in society.
The lecture was full of examples of children such as Sebastian, who present with evidence of poor health both physical and emotional. Many have been separated from their families; and many have witnessed the physical and emotional abuse imposed by the Reynosa Gang along their perilous journey to freedom in the United States.
