LOS ANGELES \u2014 Damian Zerme\u00f1o, 15, sensed something was wrong the moment he got home from school.<\/p>\n
His aunt sat at the dining table, sobbing. His father, who\u2019d walked him to the bus stop that morning and promised to take him to dinner when he got back, wasn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n
Sa\u00fal Zerme\u00f1o, a 45-year-old single dad, had gone to a routine check-in appointment at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office that morning, a requirement he\u2019d complied with for years. The father had deferred action that allowed him to stay and work in the U.S., according to his attorney. But that day, Oct. 3, officers deported him to Mexico, where he hadn\u2019t lived since he was 9 years old. Zerme\u00f1o had been Damian\u2019s sole caregiver since he was a baby because his mother chose not to be involved in the boy\u2019s life, the family said.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, Damian, who was born in the U.S., found himself separated from his father by thousands of miles and a heavily guarded border. The previously cheerful 10th grader, who doesn\u2019t have a driver\u2019s license and can make a few basic dishes but isn\u2019t used to cooking for himself, faced navigating his teenage years alone, his dad\u2019s presence reduced to a two-dimensional image on his phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it wasn\u2019t true,\u201d Damian said. \u201cI just went to my room. I didn\u2019t want to leave. I didn\u2019t even want to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Damian is among an estimated hundreds of thousands of children<\/a>, most of them U.S. citizens, separated from a parent by the Trump administration\u2019s deportation policies. Their mothers and fathers have been deported or locked for months inside detention centers, often miles away<\/a> from where their families live. These children are separated, sometimes violently<\/a>, from the adults they depend on. Parents have been arrested while dropping kids off at school<\/a>, inside their homes<\/a>, and at immigration check-ins with their children present. Most people detained have no criminal conviction<\/a>. (Being in the U.S. without authorization is typically a civil offense). With their parents gone, kids\u2019 lives are plunged into fear and uncertainty.<\/p>\n As a result, a generation of children from immigrant families are exhibiting mental health problems that could affect them for years<\/a>.<\/p>\n Parents, therapists, and others who work with immigrant families said they\u2019ve already encountered preschoolers with speech delays, elementary school children who talk of suicide, and teenagers too anxious to leave the house. Research has shown repeatedly that separating children from their parents harms their health and development<\/a>. The stress of losing a primary caregiver creates havoc in a child\u2019s brain and body, increasing their risk for mental and physical health problems, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, a weakened immune system, and developmental delays.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can just see it in their faces; it\u2019s almost like the light has been dimmed in their eyes,\u201d said the Rev. Tanya Lopez, a pastor at Downey Memorial Christian Church who regularly visits immigrant families as part of a support organization<\/a> made up of Los Angeles-area religious leaders.<\/p>\n The health risks from this stress response are long-term. People who experience parental separation and other traumatic events as children are more likely to have<\/a> heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other chronic conditions as adults.<\/p>\n In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said ICE does not separate families, and that parents are asked if they want to be removed from the country with their children or to designate a safe person for them to stay with in the U.S.<\/p>\n However, a report<\/a> by the Women\u2019s Refugee Commission and Physicians for Human Rights found that many parents aren\u2019t given that choice, and that ICE often doesn\u2019t ask detainees if they have children or take steps to ensure that children left behind are safe. Sa\u00fal Zerme\u00f1o said ICE officers didn\u2019t ask about his son or check on Damian\u2019s well-being when he was deported.<\/p>\n For days after his father\u2019s deportation, Damian didn\u2019t want to leave his room, eat, or go to school. He stopped talking to his friends. He stopped playing his favorite video game, Fears To Fathom<\/em>. When he returned to school a week later, the teenager would cry in class or walk out overwhelmed with sadness. Even his favorite subject \u2014 English \u2014 lost its appeal.<\/p>\n Damian and his father were inseparable; family members joked that they never saw one without the other. Zerme\u00f1o took Damian, who has attention-deficit\/hyperactivity disorder, autism, and other health conditions, to his medical appointments. He cooked for him and combed his hair. He loved to take Damian to his favorite Thai restaurant or to get boba drinks after school. As much as they joked around and played pranks on each other, Zerme\u00f1o also taught Damian the importance of work by bringing him along to construction jobs and to find supplies at Home Depot.<\/p>\n Damian used to get annoyed with his father\u2019s motivational chats about responsibility. Now they\u2019re one of the things he misses most.<\/p>\n \u201cI thank my dad every day for teaching me to be strong before he left,\u201d Damian said.<\/p>\n Elsewhere in Los Angeles, Jacob, a shy 9-year-old with cropped, curly hair, skinny limbs, and a serious expression, was missing his mom. On a Saturday in May, he clung tightly to his father\u2019s hand as they walked among homeless people, street peddlers, and the stench of urine that hangs in the air outside the building where they live in a cramped apartment. He hoped his mom would soon be released from immigration detention so that he could hug her again.<\/p>\n \u201cIf my mom was here, I\u2019d be happy,\u201d he said. \u201cRight now, I\u2019m not.\u201d<\/p>\n Jacob is in some ways a typical 9-year-old. He likes playing Roblox<\/em> and Street Fighter<\/em>. He dreams of becoming a police officer and of owning a guard dog, \u201cbecause you can train them and they defend you.\u201d<\/p>\n But he also endured a harrowing journey, even before being separated from his mom in January. Jacob\u2019s family fled their home country of Colombia in 2024 because members of a paramilitary group threatened to kill them, his father, Andreis, said. During their journey to the United States, Jacob saw dead bodies while trekking through the jungle, was kidnapped and robbed at gunpoint with his parents, witnessed a rape, and had to sell candy and beg for money, his dad said. KFF Health News is not using the father\u2019s or son\u2019s real name because the family fears it would jeopardize their asylum cases.<\/p>\n After the family arrived in Los Angeles, Jacob suffered from nightmares and an intense fear of being alone. He started to recover once he began attending school and got connected to therapy through the school district, his dad said. For a short while, the family felt they had found peace.<\/p>\n Then, immigration officers detained Jacob\u2019s mother at a check-in appointment while he and Andreis sat in the waiting room. The mother has a pending asylum application and no criminal record, Andreis said. The father said he and his son broke down when officers informed them of his wife\u2019s detention, handing them a bag with her wallet and cellphone. They returned home without her, leaving Jacob inconsolable.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was terrified,\u201d the father said, fighting back tears, his voice growing quiet as he recounted that moment. \u201cHe was crying with rage.\u201d<\/p>\n After that, Jacob didn\u2019t want to eat or go to school. When he went to school at his dad\u2019s insistence, his teacher called home to ask why he was crying in class. Jacob couldn\u2019t sleep. He acted out. He blamed his dad.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen will my mom come back?\u201d he asked his dad. \u201cWhy do they have my mom? I miss my mom.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, Andreis said, he was going through his own crisis, trying in vain to console his son while wrestling with grief, worry, and desperation over what happened to his wife. He stopped his work as a laborer for two weeks to take care of Jacob, but that created financial stress and meant he sometimes couldn\u2019t afford to fund his wife\u2019s commissary account so she could buy better food and make phone calls. Jacob lived for those phone calls.<\/p>\n Jacob listed all the things he missed about his mom, including her cooking (rice with meat, corn cakes with egg), visiting the park together, and her taking him to get his hair cut, treating him to McDonald\u2019s on the weekend, and bringing him to church. Most of all, he missed being close to her.<\/p>\n \u201cI would lie down with her, and I\u2019d watch videos with her,\u201d he said. \u201cMy mom would hug me and I\u2019d hug her.\u201d<\/p>\n Sometimes he sprayed her perfume on himself so he could smell her.<\/p>\n After almost five months at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, Jacob\u2019s mother was released based on a habeas corpus petition<\/a> in May. The family is still living in fear of detention or deportation. The father worries he too could be detained, and what that would mean for Jacob. Andreis is currently appealing a removal order for the two of them.<\/p>\n A recent analysis<\/a> published by the Brookings Institution estimates that over 200,000 children \u2014 including 145,000 U.S. citizen children \u2014 have likely had at least one parent detained since President Donald Trump returned to office. About a third of those children are under age 6. The number of children with detained parents is expected to grow as the federal government pours over $200 billion into immigration enforcement, including funding from the GOP\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill Act<\/a> and a $70 billion<\/a> appropriation Trump signed this month.<\/p>\n More than 4.6 million U.S. citizen children live with a parent at risk of deportation, according to the report.<\/p>\n Families Broken<\/strong><\/p>\n Noemi, a Guatemalan mother and asylum seeker, stood in the parking lot at an ICE office north of Los Angeles, her three children wailing and clinging to her, glass from the family\u2019s car scattered at their feet.<\/p>\n Moments earlier, immigration agents had smashed a window and forced her partner out of the car while he waited for Noemi and the kids to finish a check-in appointment. While they were inside, officers tried to separate Noemi from the couple\u2019s children, ages 9, 7, and 1, but gave up after the kids started screaming, Noemi said. Meanwhile, her partner, a Mexican national who\u2019s lived in the U.S. for almost 20 years, was sent to the ICE detention center in Adelanto.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was something tragic, something inexplicable that happened that day,\u201d said Noemi, who asked to withhold her full name because she fears government retaliation for sharing her story. \u201cIt\u2019s something that marks you for your whole life. My family was broken.\u201d<\/p>\n Located in the Mojave Desert, the privately run Adelanto ICE Processing Center is the immigration detention center closest to Los Angeles and one of the largest<\/a> in the U.S. It held a daily average of over 1,700 people<\/a> as of April, and a facility next door called the Desert View Annex held an additional 426.<\/p>\n Since her partner\u2019s detention in December, Noemi said, their children haven\u2019t been the same.<\/p>\n Her 7-year-old daughter, till then usually happy and smiling, became depressed and refused to eat. Her once-high grades plummeted, and she forgot the names of letters and numbers in both English and Spanish. She and her 9-year-old brother struggled to sleep and asked constantly about their dad, wondering if he was taken because they\u2019d done something wrong.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy is this happening to us?\u201d they asked her. \u201cWe\u2019re good. We\u2019re studying.\u201d<\/p>\n Noemi\u2019s youngest daughter went back to crawling for three months, even though she\u2019d already learned to walk before her father was taken. The little girl would cry out in her sleep, \u201cPa! Pa!\u201d<\/p>\n Sofia Mendoza, a therapist who works with immigrant families at a community clinic in Los Angeles County, said separated children can experience a form of grief. It\u2019s hard for them to come to terms with their parent\u2019s absence because the parent is still alive, but not with them. This can disrupt the child\u2019s bond with that parent and their ability to form trusting relationships in the future, she said.<\/p>\n Many children also become extremely anxious, angry, and fearful, Mendoza said. Young children often complain of physical symptoms such as stomachaches, develop separation anxiety, and regress to earlier behaviors like bed-wetting. Older children may have panic attacks, nightmares, and difficulty focusing, Mendoza said. Caregiver loss is also associated with increased risk of suicide<\/a> and substance use in children.<\/p>\n Norma G\u00f3mez, a project manager for the Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project in Oxnard, said after immigration raids shook the community last summer, her 9-year-old daughter refused to go to school for a week and was afraid to leave her mom and dad, even though they\u2019re legal U.S. residents. She\u2019d seen other kids at school crying because family members had been detained. G\u00f3mez showed her daughter their U.S. residency documents to reassure her. The child asked to make copies for her classmates, hoping they would protect them too.<\/p>\n \u2018Time To Be an Adult\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Back in East Los Angeles, Damian is living with one of his aunts and struggling to adapt to not having his father around. He said his grades have dropped because he can\u2019t focus in school. He no longer wants to do things he used to enjoy with his dad, such as going out to eat.<\/p>\n \u201cFun is over,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s time to be an adult right now.\u201d<\/p>\n Being without his father has forced Damian to become more independent, he and his aunt Claudia Zerme\u00f1o said. Before, his dad did almost everything for him. Now, Damian does his own laundry, helps with housework, and styles his own hair. He\u2019s protective of his aunts, who are both devastated by their brother\u2019s absence; he hugs them frequently and tells jokes to try to cheer them up. He doesn\u2019t want to upset them more by showing his own sadness.<\/p>\n Damian receives therapy both in and outside of school. He said he\u2019s learned breathing exercises that have helped, but he still feels sad and worried a lot of the time. Sometimes he feels angry.<\/p>\n \u201cI try my hardest to think, to stay focused,\u201d he said. \u201cBut with everything that\u2019s going on, I can\u2019t keep the facade of \u2018everything\u2019s normal\u2019 when I feel heartbroken.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Two](\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/06\/Growing-up-scared-mental-health-015-web.jpg?w=1270\")
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