Every Tool Is a Weapon

Immigrant children held by the Office of Refugee Resettlement receive mandatory therapy sessions.

In 2018, ORR agreed to share information with ICE, including therapists' notes that could become “prosecutorial weapons” in court filings.

Minors who admit to witnessing gang violence, for example, could be marked as having “gang involvement” and sent to high-security detention centers to await deportation.

The strategy is technically legal, but therapists say it’s a violation of patient confidentiality. (Read the devastating effect it’s had on Kevin Euceda, a young asylum-seeker from Honduras.)

“The idea of going to therapy is not trying to solicit confessions for other uses,” says APA’s Lynn Bufka.

The Washington Post