At Ursula, however, the children Sevier examined—like the panting 2-year-old—were “totally fearful, but then entirely subdued,” she told me. She could read the fear in their faces, but they were perfectly submissive to her authority. “I can only explain it by trauma, because that is such an unusual behavior,” she said. Sevier had brought along Mickey Mouse toys to break the ice, and the kids seem to enjoy playing with them. Yet none resisted, she said, when she took them away at the end of the exam. “At some point,” Sevier mused, “you’re broken and you stop fighting.”
Sevier made her way down the list of names. A 15-month-old baby with a fever had been in detention for three weeks. His uncle had fed him from the same dirty formula bottle for days on end, until a guard replaced it with a new one. Because “all parents want the best health for their infant,” Sevier later wrote in the medical declaration, denying them “the ability to wash their infant’s bottles is unconscionable and could be considered intentional mental and emotional abuse.” Before her visit, the uncle had asked for medical attention because the baby was wheezing. In response, a guard had touched the baby’s head with his hand and concluded, “He’s not hot,” the uncle told Sevier.
—Jeremy Raff, in “What a Pediatrician Saw Inside a Border Patrol Warehouse”
Published to write.house by Bix Frankonis. Comments and replies by email are welcome.