Asylum seekers who arrive at the US southern border are in flight for their lives. Mothers and children flee violent cartels who threaten them with death, kidnapping, and sexual violence.  Adults and teens flee violent governments, political torture, and imprisonment for their faith, politics, or sexual orientation. Women flee violent partners in places where police will not protect them.

 

Survivors seeking US protection are forced to wait in camps and shelters on the Mexico side, where they remain targets of violent cartels. Even those granted US entry must await asylum decisions and still fear deportation to the places they fled. H.O.M.E. mental health professionals see firsthand that traumatized migrants cannot heal from psychological wounds while their lives are still in danger.  

 

In response, H.O.M.E. clinicians step in to listen to survivors’ accounts, review their symptoms, and document psychological injuries so that US Border officials or Immigration Courts can better determine whether the person before them is suffering the effects of torture or violence. This knowledge is often the determining factor in granting protection. Our work promotes humane processes through existing legal channels.