San Diego Conference Spotlights The Separated Families You Often Don’t Hear About

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Credit: Brandon Quester / inewsource

Above: Eduardo Bohorquez drives his family toward the San Ysidro port of entry in Tijuana on Sept. 9, 2017. The family visits their father on weekends because he is banned from entering the U.S.

Aired 3/21/19 on KPBS Midday Edition

GUEST: Mariela Shibley, psychologist

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Transcript for audioclip 45554

The Trump administration’s family separation practice led to heartbreaking scenes last summer of children who had been split up from parents along the U.S.-Mexico border.

But for years, those scenes have also been playing out for another largely overlooked group of separated families.

Mixed-status families, made up of both citizens and non-citizens, have also been separated after a family member gets detained or deported. That person is often a parent without legal status.

Nationwide there are more than 9 million children whose parents are undocumented immigrants. The constant threat of a parent’s detention and deportation can have a variety of effects on a child’s mental health.

That will be one of the topics discussed this week at a children’s mental health conference in San Diego.

Psychologist Mariela Shibley, who specializes in immigration issues and trauma, will be speaking at the conference and joins Midday Edition Thursday to share what she's learned about the effects of U.S. immigration policy on children.

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