On Second Thought For Thursday, May 31, 2018

In a bid to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Alabama and six other states recently filed a lawsuit against it. The Obama-era program protects about 700,000 young immigrants from deportation. In Georgia, there are roughly 24,000 DREAMers, a term that describes undocumented immigrants whose family brought them to the United States as children, and who have grown up in the U.S. 

Valentina Emilia Garcia Gonzalez is one of them. We first met Gonzalez last year, when she was a student at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. She joined us again to talk about the effects of her immigrant experience on her mental health.

On Second Thought for Thursday, May 31, 2018.

Belisa Urbina is the executive director of Ser Familia, a Georgia-based group that provides counseling and support for Latino families who live here. Urbina explains how mental health affects the immigrant experience, especially for undocumented immigrants.

Emory University professor Marie Marquardt has closely followed the battle over DACA. She’s an immigration activist who brings her activism to young adult fiction. We talked with her earlier this year about her latest book, “Flight Season.”