Sara trembled, her eyes closed. Her small, 18-year-old figure was there in the passenger seat of my car, but her mind was locked behind a closed door. She grabbed her head. A vein in her forehead was swelling; it was as if her thoughts were exploding.

I was there in response to a desperate call. She said she was alone and afraid. Deeply afraid. She said she needed someone to talk to. It was 10 at night; I drove across town and picked her up.

Continue reading → “Lost and Found,” Phoenix New Times, February 1, 2017

Still, his deportation came sooner than she expected.

“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I see him,” she said, as she got on Interstate 19, the highway that leads to Nogales, Arizona. She was in the last hour of a 180-mile drive to the southern border from Phoenix. Read More.

They are among thousands of families across the country who have been placed in immigrant family detention centers that mental health experts warn impose anxiety and further trauma on an already vulnerable population of asylum-seekers. After she won an appeal, the government released Maria and her children while her asylum case moves forward. But they continue to deny release to thousands of other migrants like them. Read more.