“A Summer Break That Wasn't: American Kids Living in Fear of ICE”
This summer, Ariel Goodman, assistant professor of journalism, reported for the Peabody award-winning national radio show Latino USA on the stories of some of the over 4 million American kids who live with undocumented parents. The half-hour podcast episode told the stories of how young people navigated summer vacation amid a profound fear that a parent could be taken by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“A Summer Break That Wasn't: American Kids Living in Fear of ICE” shines a light on the profound psychological toll that President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign has taken on American kids.
“We often see stories in the news about the political battles playing out in Washington around immigration or watch jarring videos of the increasingly violent ICE raids taking place across the country,” Goodman said. “In this story, we wanted to expand the frame and look at what the psychological impact is on the everyday lives of children with undocumented parents.”
Goodman and the Latino USA team visited a summer camp in a community with a large immigrant population, where counselors had designed and implemented a safety plan to protect the camp from ICE. The podcast takes the listener into the inner world of campers of all ages as they go about their days while managing the stress and fear that a parent could be taken away.
“At a glance, this looks like a typical summer camp, but for the kids here, this summer has been anything but normal,” Goodman said in the podcast.
The podcast also follows the life of a teenage girl in her final summer vacation before college. As she navigates teenage milestones like getting her driver’s license, she and her parents navigate the fear of their family being separated.
Goodman not only journeys into the families’ worlds but also consults experts in child psychology whose research underscores the significance of the long-term psychological effects of living in a state of perpetually looming fear—effects that will impact these families for the rest of their lives.
“My hope with this piece is that people can hear, when they listen to it, the voices of the children themselves,” Goodman said. “Those are the voices that are the soul of this piece. And I hope that when [listeners] hear those voices, they realize that they’re hearing the voices of the future of this country, and I hope that the piece forces people to reckon with the things that [the children] are saying and with the realities that they’re describing that are now their daily lives.”
Employees from the Klein Equipment Office, Gabby Ceccato and Finn Bellomo, assisted Goodman with the recording of the episode.
A Temple alum, José Ortiz-Pagán, TYL ’11, created the cover art for the episode. Listen to the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or on LatinoUSA.org