Psychological Effects of Family Separation

Separating families at the border is, according to physicians and mental health experts, an inhumane practice. Regardless of why the policy was implemented, the practice “negatively impacts emotional and psychological development and well-being, creates security and economic difficulties, and strips the dignity of an individual and their family as a whole” (100). Whether separating families happens in war-torn nations or through a bureaucratic process inside border stations, the negative effects on the families are the same.

Many immigrants leave traumatic situations and unknowingly enter another under the family separations policy at the U.S.-Mexico border. Juan and his son Jose flee from dangerous drug cartel members in the area of Petén, Guatemala. When Soboroff meets with Juan, Juan shows him the aerial satellite view of where he lives, a land crisscrossed by many illegal runways that transport drugs. Cartel members want Juan’s...