2026年6月18日 美国东部时间5:00 AM / KFF健康新闻
洛杉矶讯——15岁的达米安·泽梅尼奥从学校回家的那一刻就察觉到不对劲。
他的姨妈坐在餐桌旁啜泣。而他父亲——那天早上还步行送他去公交站，承诺放学后带他去吃晚餐的人——却不在家。
45岁的单身父亲索尔·泽梅尼奥当天前往移民海关执法局办公室进行例行报到，这是他多年来一直遵守的要求。据他的律师透露，这位父亲曾获得暂缓遣返许可，得以留在美国并工作。但在10月3日那天，执法人员将他驱逐回墨西哥，而他自9岁起就未曾在那里生活过。泽梅尼奥一家表示，达米安的母亲从未参与过儿子的生活，因此自达米安幼年起，父亲便是他唯一的监护人。
身为美国本土出生的达米安，突然发现自己与父亲相隔数千英里，还有一道戒备森严的边境将他们分开。这位原本开朗的十年级学生既没有驾照，也只会做几道简单的饭菜，从未独自生活过，如今却要独自度过青春期，父亲的身影只能定格在手机里的二维照片中。
“我以为这不是真的，”达米安说，“我直接回了房间，不想出门，甚至不想吃饭。”
达米安·泽梅尼奥与父亲进行视频通话。单身家长索尔·泽梅尼奥在美国生活了36年后，于10月被驱逐回墨西哥。 卡拉·加切特 摄 KFF健康新闻
像达米安这样的孩子估计有数十万，其中大多数是美国公民，他们因特朗普政府的驱逐政策而与父母分离。他们的父母要么被驱逐出境，要么被关押在距离家人居住地数英里之外的拘留中心数月之久。这些孩子与他们依赖的成年人被强行分开，有时甚至是通过暴力手段。父母曾在送孩子上学时、在家中以及与孩子一同参加移民报到时被捕。大多数被拘留者并无犯罪记录（未经授权留在美国通常属于民事违规行为）。父母离开后，孩子们的生活陷入恐惧与不确定之中。
因此，一代移民家庭的儿童正出现可能影响其一生的心理健康问题。
父母、治疗师以及其他与移民家庭打交道的人士表示，他们已经遇到过出现语言发育迟缓的学龄前儿童、谈及自杀的小学生，以及因焦虑而不敢出门的青少年。多项研究反复证实，将儿童与父母分开会损害他们的健康与发育。失去主要照顾者带来的压力会对儿童的大脑和身体造成严重破坏，增加他们患上精神和身体健康问题的风险，包括抑郁症、焦虑症、创伤后应激障碍、免疫系统减弱以及发育迟缓。
“你能从他们的脸上看出来，他们的眼神里几乎没了光，”唐尼纪念基督教堂牧师坦尼娅·洛佩兹神父说道，她作为洛杉矶地区宗教领袖组成的支持组织的一员，定期拜访移民家庭。
这种压力反应带来的健康风险是长期的。童年时期经历过父母分离和其他创伤事件的人，成年后更容易患上心脏病、糖尿病、癌症和其他慢性疾病。
美国国土安全部在一份声明中表示，移民海关执法局并不会拆散家庭，父母会被问及是否希望与孩子一同被遣返，或指定一名可靠人士在美国照顾孩子。
但妇女难民委员会和人权医师组织的一份报告发现，许多父母并没有选择权，移民海关执法局通常不会询问被拘留者是否有子女，也不会采取措施确保被留下的孩子的安全。索尔·泽梅尼奥表示，他被驱逐时，移民海关执法局的官员没有询问他儿子的情况，也没有核实达米安的福祉。
在父亲被驱逐后的几天里，达米安不愿离开房间、不愿吃饭或上学。他不再和朋友说话，也不再玩他最喜欢的电子游戏《恐惧渐深》。一周后回到学校时，这位少年会在课堂上哭泣，或是因情绪崩溃而走出教室。就连他最喜欢的科目——英语，也失去了吸引力。
达米安和父亲曾形影不离；家人们开玩笑说，他们从未见过两人分开的时候。泽梅尼奥会带着患有注意力缺陷多动障碍、自闭症和其他健康问题的达米安去看医生，为他做饭，帮他梳头。他喜欢带达米安去他们最喜欢的泰国餐厅，或是放学后去买珍珠奶茶。尽管他们经常开玩笑、互相捉弄，泽梅尼奥还是通过带达米安去建筑工地、去家得宝采购材料，让他明白了工作的重要性。
达米安过去常常对父亲关于责任的励志谈话感到厌烦，而现在，这些谈话却是他最怀念的东西之一。
“我每天都感谢父亲在离开前教我要坚强，”达米安说。
在洛杉矶的另一个地方，9岁的雅各布性格腼腆，留着短短的卷发，身形瘦削，表情严肃，他非常想念妈妈。5月的一个周六，他紧紧攥着父亲的手，走在无家可归者、街头小贩和他们居住的狭窄公寓楼外弥漫的尿味之中。他希望妈妈能尽快从移民拘留所被释放，这样他就能再次拥抱她。
“如果妈妈在这里，我会很开心，”他说，“但现在我不开心。”
雅各布在某些方面是个典型的9岁孩子。他喜欢玩《罗布乐思》和《街头霸王》，梦想成为一名警察，拥有一只护卫犬，“因为你可以训练它们，它们会保护你”。
但在与母亲在1月分离之前，他还经历了一段可怕的旅程。雅各布的父亲安德烈斯表示，2024年，他们全家因准军事组织成员威胁要杀害他们而逃离了哥伦比亚的家乡。在前往美国的途中，雅各布在穿越丛林时看到了尸体，与父母一起被持枪绑架并抢劫，目睹了一起强奸案，还不得不靠卖糖果和乞讨赚钱。KFF健康新闻未使用这对父子的真实姓名，因为该家庭担心这会危及他们的庇护申请。
全家抵达洛杉矶后，雅各布开始做噩梦，极度害怕独处。他的父亲说，自从他开始上学并通过学区接受治疗后，情况有所好转。有那么一小段时间，全家都觉得找到了平静。
随后，移民官员在一次报到会面中拘留了雅各布的母亲，当时他和安德烈斯正坐在等候室里。安德烈斯说，母亲的庇护申请尚未审结，也没有犯罪记录。父亲说，当官员告知他们妻子被拘留的消息，并递给他们一个装有她钱包和手机的袋子时，他和儿子崩溃了，两人空着手回了家，留下雅各布悲痛欲绝。
“他吓坏了，”父亲强忍着泪水，声音越来越低地回忆那一刻，“他气得大哭。”
从那以后，雅各布不愿吃饭或上学。在父亲的坚持下他去了学校，但老师打电话回家询问他为什么在课堂上哭泣。雅各布无法入睡，行为变得叛逆，还责怪父亲。
“我妈妈什么时候回来？”他问父亲，“他们为什么抓我妈妈？我想妈妈。”
与此同时，安德烈斯说，他自己也陷入了危机，一边徒劳地安慰儿子，一边为妻子的遭遇感到悲痛、焦虑和绝望。他停了两周的体力劳动工作来照顾雅各布，但这造成了经济压力，有时甚至没钱给妻子的 commissary 账户充值，让她能买到更好的食物并打电话。雅各巴靠那些电话通话度日。
雅各布列出了所有他想念妈妈的事情，包括她做的饭（肉炒饭、鸡蛋玉米饼）、一起去公园、周末带他去剪头发、周末请他吃麦当劳，还有带他去教堂。最让他想念的是和妈妈的亲密时光。
“我会躺在她身边，和她一起看视频，”他说，“我妈妈会抱我，我也会抱她。”
有时他会喷妈妈的香水在自己身上，这样就能闻到她的味道。
在阿德尔anto移民拘留中心待了近五个月后，雅各布的母亲于5月通过人身保护令申请获释。全家仍生活在被拘留或驱逐的恐惧之中。父亲担心自己也会被拘留，以及这对雅各布意味着什么。安德烈斯目前正在就两人的驱逐令提起上诉。
布鲁金斯学会最近发表的一项分析估计，自特朗普再次就职以来，已有超过20万名儿童——其中包括14.5万名美国公民儿童——至少有一名父母被拘留。其中约三分之一的孩子年龄在6岁以下。随着联邦政府投入超过2000亿美元用于移民执法，包括从共和党《宏大美丽法案》获得的资金和特朗普本月签署的700亿美元拨款，父母被拘留的儿童数量预计还会增加。
该报告显示，超过460万美国公民儿童与面临被驱逐风险的父母生活在一起。
破碎的家庭
诺埃米是危地马拉籍的母亲和庇护寻求者，她站在洛杉矶北部移民海关执法局办公室的停车场里，她的三个孩子哭嚎着紧紧抱住她，家庭汽车的玻璃碎片散落在他们脚边。
此前不久，移民特工砸碎了车窗，在她和孩子们完成报到会面等待时，将她的伴侣从车里拖了出来。诺埃米说，他们在屋内时，官员试图将诺埃米与她9岁、7岁和1岁的孩子分开，但在孩子们开始尖叫后放弃了。与此同时，她的伴侣——一名在美国生活了近20年的墨西哥公民——被送往阿德尔anto移民拘留中心。
“那天发生的事是一场悲剧，一件无法解释的事，”诺埃米说，她要求隐去全名，因为她担心分享自己的故事会遭到政府报复，“这件事会伴随你一生。我的家庭破碎了。”
位于莫哈韦沙漠的私营阿德尔anto移民拘留中心是距离洛杉矶最近的移民拘留中心，也是美国最大的拘留中心之一。截至4月，该中心日均在押人数超过1700人，隔壁的沙漠景观附属中心另有426名在押人员。
诺埃米说，自去年12月伴侣被拘留以来，她的孩子们变了一个人。
她7岁的女儿此前一直快乐爱笑，后来变得抑郁，拒绝吃饭。她曾经优异的成绩一落千丈，还忘记了英语和西班牙语中的字母和数字名称。她和9岁的哥哥难以入睡，不停地问父亲去哪了，怀疑他们是不是做错了什么才导致父亲被带走。
“为什么这种事会发生在我们身上？”他们问她，“我们很乖，我们在学习。”
诺埃米最小的女儿本来已经学会走路，却又退回到爬行状态长达三个月。小女孩会在睡梦中哭喊：“爸爸！爸爸！”
索菲亚·门多萨是洛杉矶县一家社区诊所的治疗师，专门为移民家庭提供服务。她说，与父母分离的儿童会经历一种形式的悲伤。他们很难接受父母不在身边的事实，因为父母还活着，却不在他们身边。这会破坏孩子与父母的依恋关系，以及他们未来建立信任关系的能力。
许多孩子还会变得极度焦虑、愤怒和恐惧，门多萨说。年幼的孩子经常抱怨身体不适，比如胃痛，出现分离焦虑，还会退回到尿床等更早的行为模式。年龄较大的孩子可能会出现惊恐发作、噩梦和注意力不集中的问题。门多萨表示，失去照顾者还与儿童自杀和物质使用风险增加有关。
诺曼·戈麦斯是奥克斯纳德的米斯特科原住民社区组织项目的项目经理。她说，去年夏天移民突袭行动震撼社区后，她9岁的女儿拒绝上学达一周之久，不敢离开父母，尽管他们都是合法美国居民。她在学校看到其他孩子因为家人被拘留而哭泣。戈麦斯给女儿看了他们的美国居留证件以安抚她。孩子还要求复印证件给同学们，希望能保护他们。
“该长大了”
回到东洛杉矶，达米安和姨妈住在一起，努力适应没有父亲在身边的生活。他说自己的成绩下滑了，因为在学校无法集中注意力。他不再想做以前和父亲一起喜欢做的事，比如外出就餐。
“乐趣都结束了，”他说，“现在该长大了。”
达米安·泽梅尼奥在东洛杉矶的家中帮姨妈做午饭。自父亲被驱逐以来，达米安说他学会了更加独立，但他仍然想念父亲，经常感到悲伤、焦虑或愤怒。 卡拉·加切特 摄 KFF健康新闻
失去父亲让达米安不得不变得更加独立，他和姨妈克劳迪娅·泽梅尼奥都这么说。以前，父亲几乎为他做了所有事。现在，达米安自己洗衣服、帮忙做家务，还自己梳头。他很保护姨妈们，她们都为兄弟的离开悲痛欲绝；他经常拥抱她们，讲笑话逗她们开心。他不想让她们因为自己的悲伤而更难过。
达米安在校内和校外都接受了治疗。他说自己学会了呼吸练习，有所帮助，但很多时候他仍然感到悲伤和焦虑。有时他会感到愤怒。
“我尽力去思考，保持专注，”他说，“但现在发生的这一切，当我内心悲痛欲绝时，我无法再伪装‘一切正常’了。”
索尔·泽梅尼奥现在住在瓜达拉哈拉，他很担心儿子的健康。达米安患有1型神经纤维瘤病这种遗传病，会导致神经组织上长出肿瘤，包括头部的一颗肿瘤，如果不定期看医生并由家人监测，可能会影响他的大脑。他还患有癫痫，出生时只有一个肾脏，这意味着他容易疲劳，不能参加体育运动。索尔担心没有他在身边，儿子无法得到所需的治疗。作为达米安的法定监护人，克劳迪娅·泽梅尼奥正在尽她所能照顾他，但她自己也有两个孩子，还要照顾因中风导致神经系统问题的母亲。
达米安尽可能多地和父亲通话。他希望能去墨西哥看望父亲，但他没有护照，作为16岁以下的未成年人，在没有父亲在场的情况下申请护照有更多要求。索尔正在与律师合作，争取合法返回美国的许可，但这个过程复杂且充满不确定性。
所以，目前达米安只能抱着希望，期盼父亲能被允许回来，并努力成为他认为自己应该成为的人。他正计划在本月满16岁时考取驾照。他放弃了上大学的目标，反而想在高中毕业后立即找份工作，帮助姨妈们，并给父亲寄钱。
他仍然会哭泣，但只会在房间里独自一人的时候。
KFF健康新闻是一家全国性新闻编辑部，专注于报道健康议题的深度新闻，是KFF——独立的健康政策研究、民意调查和新闻资讯来源——的核心运营项目之一。
Arrests of immigrant parents create mental health crisis for children
June 18, 2026 5:00 AM EDT / KFF Health News
Los Angeles— Damian Zermeño, 15, sensed something was wrong the moment he got home from school.
His aunt sat at the dining table, sobbing. His father, who’d walked him to the bus stop that morning and promised to take him to dinner when he got back, wasn’t there.
Saúl Zermeño, 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’d 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’t lived since he was 9 years old. Zermeño had been Damian’s sole caregiver since he was a baby because his mother chose not to be involved in the boy’s life, the family said.
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’t have a driver’s license and can make a few basic dishes but isn’t used to cooking for himself, faced navigating his teenage years alone, his dad’s presence reduced to a two-dimensional image on his phone.
“I thought it wasn’t true,” Damian said. “I just went to my room. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t even want to eat.”
Damian Zermeño talks to his father over video chat. Saúl Zermeño, a single parent, was deported to Mexico in October after living 36 years in the United States. Karla Gachet for KFF Health News
Damian is among an estimated hundreds of thousands of children, most of them U.S. citizens, separated from a parent by the Trump administration’s deportation policies. Their mothers and fathers have been deported or locked for months inside detention centers, often miles away from where their families live. These children are separated, sometimes violently, from the adults they depend on. Parents have been arrested while dropping kids off at school, inside their homes, and at immigration check-ins with their children present. Most people detained have no criminal conviction. (Being in the U.S. without authorization is typically a civil offense). With their parents gone, kids’ lives are plunged into fear and uncertainty.
As a result, a generation of children from immigrant families are exhibiting mental health problems that could affect them for years.
Parents, therapists, and others who work with immigrant families said they’ve 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. The stress of losing a primary caregiver creates havoc in a child’s 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.
“You can just see it in their faces; it’s almost like the light has been dimmed in their eyes,” said the Rev. Tanya Lopez, a pastor at Downey Memorial Christian Church who regularly visits immigrant families as part of a support organization made up of Los Angeles-area religious leaders.
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 heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other chronic conditions as adults.
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.
However, a report by the Women’s Refugee Commission and Physicians for Human Rights found that many parents aren’t given that choice, and that ICE often doesn’t ask detainees if they have children or take steps to ensure that children left behind are safe. Saúl Zermeño said ICE officers didn’t ask about his son or check on Damian’s well-being when he was deported.
For days after his father’s deportation, Damian didn’t 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. When he returned to school a week later, the teenager would cry in class or walk out overwhelmed with sadness. Even his favorite subject — English — lost its appeal.
Damian and his father were inseparable; family members joked that they never saw one without the other. Zermeño 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, Zermeño also taught Damian the importance of work by bringing him along to construction jobs and to find supplies at Home Depot.
Damian used to get annoyed with his father’s motivational chats about responsibility. Now they’re one of the things he misses most.
“I thank my dad every day for teaching me to be strong before he left,” Damian said.
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’s 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.
“If my mom was here, I’d be happy,” he said. “Right now, I’m not.”
Jacob is in some ways a typical 9-year-old. He likes playing Roblox and Street Fighter. He dreams of becoming a police officer and of owning a guard dog, “because you can train them and they defend you.”
But he also endured a harrowing journey, even before being separated from his mom in January. Jacob’s 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’s or son’s real name because the family fears it would jeopardize their asylum cases.
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.
Then, immigration officers detained Jacob’s 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’s detention, handing them a bag with her wallet and cellphone. They returned home without her, leaving Jacob inconsolable.
“He was terrified,” the father said, fighting back tears, his voice growing quiet as he recounted that moment. “He was crying with rage.”
After that, Jacob didn’t want to eat or go to school. When he went to school at his dad’s insistence, his teacher called home to ask why he was crying in class. Jacob couldn’t sleep. He acted out. He blamed his dad.
“When will my mom come back?” he asked his dad. “Why do they have my mom? I miss my mom.”
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’t afford to fund his wife’s commissary account so she could buy better food and make phone calls. Jacob lived for those phone calls.
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’s on the weekend, and bringing him to church. Most of all, he missed being close to her.
“I would lie down with her, and I’d watch videos with her,” he said. “My mom would hug me and I’d hug her.”
Sometimes he sprayed her perfume on himself so he could smell her.
After almost five months at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, Jacob’s mother was released based on a habeas corpus petition 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.
A recent analysis published by the Brookings Institution estimates that over 200,000 children — including 145,000 U.S. citizen children — have likely had at least one parent detained since President 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’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act and a $70 billion appropriation Trump signed this month.
More than 4.6 million U.S. citizen children live with a parent at risk of deportation, according to the report.
Families broken
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’s car scattered at their feet.
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’s children, ages 9, 7, and 1, but gave up after the kids started screaming, Noemi said. Meanwhile, her partner, a Mexican national who’s lived in the U.S. for almost 20 years, was sent to the ICE detention center in Adelanto.
“It was something tragic, something inexplicable that happened that day,” said Noemi, who asked to withhold her full name because she fears government retaliation for sharing her story. “It’s something that marks you for your whole life. My family was broken.”
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 in the U.S. It held a daily average of over 1,700 people as of April, and a facility next door called the Desert View Annex held an additional 426.
Since her partner’s detention in December, Noemi said, their children haven’t been the same.
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’d done something wrong.
“Why is this happening to us?” they asked her. “We’re good. We’re studying.”
Noemi’s youngest daughter went back to crawling for three months, even though she’d already learned to walk before her father was taken. The little girl would cry out in her sleep, “Pa! Pa!”
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’s hard for them to come to terms with their parent’s absence because the parent is still alive, but not with them. This can disrupt the child’s bond with that parent and their ability to form trusting relationships in the future, she said.
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 and substance use in children.
Norma Gómez, 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’re legal U.S. residents. She’d seen other kids at school crying because family members had been detained. Gómez 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.
“Time to be an adult”
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’t focus in school. He no longer wants to do things he used to enjoy with his dad, such as going out to eat.
“Fun is over,” he said. “It’s time to be an adult right now.”
Damian Zermeño helps his aunts make lunch at his home in East Los Angeles. Since his father was deported, Damian says, he’s learned to be more independent, but he still misses his dad and often feels sad, worried, or angry. Karla Gachet for KFF Health News
Being without his father has forced Damian to become more independent, he and his aunt Claudia Zermeño said. Before, his dad did almost everything for him. Now, Damian does his own laundry, helps with housework, and styles his own hair. He’s protective of his aunts, who are both devastated by their brother’s absence; he hugs them frequently and tells jokes to try to cheer them up. He doesn’t want to upset them more by showing his own sadness.
Damian receives therapy both in and outside of school. He said he’s learned breathing exercises that have helped, but he still feels sad and worried a lot of the time. Sometimes he feels angry.
“I try my hardest to think, to stay focused,” he said. “But with everything that’s going on, I can’t keep the facade of ‘everything’s normal’ when I feel heartbroken.”
Saúl Zermeño, now living in Guadalajara, said he’s worried about his son’s health. Damian has a genetic condition called neurofibromatosis Type 1, which causes tumors to grow on nerve tissue in his body, including one in his head that, if not checked regularly by a doctor and monitored by his family, could interfere with his brain. He also suffers from epilepsy and was born with only one kidney, which means he tires easily and doesn’t play sports. Saúl is afraid his son won’t get the care he needs without him there. As Damian’s legal guardian, Claudia Zermeño is doing everything she can for him, but she has two children of her own and is also caring for her mother, who has neurological problems from a stroke.
Damian talks with his dad as often as he can. He hopes to visit his father in Mexico, but he doesn’t have a passport and, as a minor under 16, there are more requirements to get one without his dad present. Saúl is working with an attorney to get permission to legally return to the U.S., but the process is complicated and uncertain.
So, for now, Damian’s hanging on to hope that his dad will be allowed to return and is trying to become the man he believes he should be. He’s making plans to get his driver’s license when he turns 16 this month. He’s given up his goal of going to college and instead wants to get a job right after high school to help his aunts and send money to his dad.
He still cries, but only when he’s alone in his room.
_KFF Health News_is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at_KFF_— the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism._