“The recurrent feeling is fear,” says Julissa Peña, Executive Director of the Immigrant Legal Defense Center in Santa Barbara.
Peña says her office has been overwhelmed in recent weeks, not only with legal inquiries but emotional pleas for mental health support, especially from families affected by ICE arrests across the Central Coast.
“We had unaccompanied immigrant children that we were representing for legal services come to us desperately asking us to please connect them with a therapist,” Peña said…