The Trauma of Surviving ICE Bullets

Carlos Iván Mendoza Hernández was on his way to work when ICE agents stopped him and shot him at close range in an agricultural town in California. He survived, but his life and his family’s have been shattered: he remains detained and faces prosecution, while his wife fights for his rights, raises their daughter alone, and struggles with deteriorating mental health. The violence embedded in immigration policy is generating a state of terror that experts are calling a public health emergency. Why is the Mendoza family’s case not an isolated one? What does it mean to survive an ICE attack? And how are the violent federal operations directly affecting the mental health of communities? 

This is a special report produced through the Ethnic Media Collaborative, with support from the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism.