U


nderstanding Deported Mothers and Their American Children: An Attachment


Perspective By Vandana D’Sena


Maria (pseudonym), a Mexican citizen crossed the U.S.A. border illegally and decided to stay when she met her future husband, Adam (pseudonym), and subsequently gave birth to two children. Maria applied to legalize her immigration status, but she was informed that she had broken the law, would be deported to Mexico, and was banned from entering the U.S.A. for over five years. Maria’s children were both below the age of four years when she was separated from them. Unfortunately, Maria’s story is not unusual. A projected 11.2 million undocumented immigrants live in United States and hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are removed from the country each year.


Relation to Attachment Theory


Three main aspects of the child-mother attachment system are that the child (a) seeks proximity with the attachment figure, (b) uses the attachment figure as a secure base to explore from, and (c) perceives the attachment figure as a safe haven. When the child feels distressed or threatened, the attachment system is activated and the child seeks proximity with the primary attachment figure. Maria was deported to Mexico when her children were preschoolers and she was not available as their primary attachment figure. Although Adam was there to attend to the girls, he was working full-time to provide for the girls and to pay for the trips to Mexico. Therefore, it is likely that when the girls perceived threats in the environment, their attachment system was activated due to the lack of terminating stimuli such as Maria’s soothing voice or her proximity. Mother-child separation leads to intense distress in the child even if other individuals


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are available to take care of the child’s physical needs. Therefore, lack of Maria’s presence in the children’s lives could have led to intense distress, which may affect psychological well-being.


When the child is assured of the protective function of the attachment figure through close proximity, the child develops secure attachment and is able to confidently explore the environment; when the attachment figure is unresponsive or unavailable, the child may develop insecure attachment. Secure attachment results in eagerness to learn, healthy self-awareness, affective self-regulation, trust in social interactions, and empathy. Early positive or negative experiences are encoded in the child’s brain as internal working models that become the template that the child, and later the adolescent and adult, rely on to create and maintain relationships with others. With the absence of their mother as a secure base, Maria’s children may have developed maladaptive affective and behavioural responses stemming from insecure attachment, which could lead to negative representations of self-doubt and low self-esteem. When these patterns become encoded as internal working models, dysfunctional interrelational patterns are repeated throughout an individual’s lifespan.


The primary attachment figure also serves as an emotional safe haven wherein she/ he alleviates distress, and provides comfort and support. Proximity seeking in infants and children is an inborn affect-regulation device that is intended to relieve stress and safeguard against physical and psychological threats. Maria was unable to help regulate the girls’ emotions by providing comfort


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