For four months I interviewed families who’d been affected by the deportation of a father or spouse. I also interviewed professionals: teachers, psychologists, attorneys and community organizers who work with these families.Through my project, two aspects of the families separated by deportation caught my attention. According to experts, the children are the most devastated and in many homes the mothers are not prepared to provide for the family when the father is no longer present. Many mothers don’t want to go back to their home countries because they think that the best opportunities for their children, many of them American citizens, are here. As I did my reporting, it struck me how often the children in such families started to have nightmares, screamed at night, and got sick in the wake of the father’s deportation. Experts such as Laura Marantz, school counselor at Berkeley Lake Elementary School in Duluth, Ga., compared the experience of deportation with the death or divorce of one’s parents. The schools refer many of these kids to psychologists or counsellors, but parents such as Dionila Roblero, a Guatemalan whose husband was deported in 2012, often don’t seek any counseling or therapy. Roblero and other women found needed support in their faith communities or in their neighborhoods.There’s still a lack of information among families about services and organizations available to help if they need mental health services. And some still avoid seeking psychological help due to the stigma associated with it. In Georgia, there’s a need for more bicultural and bilingual experts who can help these families, as well as more community organizations who can take the family through the process of getting the services they need after the deportation of the fathers.
