Alfonso Mercado, psychologist and expert in immigration trauma: ‘The only crisis at the border is that of mental health’
The clinical psychology professor has been working at the border for a decade, where he has witnessed all kinds of abuse and suffering. Now he is ‘very concerned of what’s to come’ under Trump’s second term
Alfonso Mercado’s work has turned his hair gray. And his beard. In fact, at 46, his hair is completely white, and he blames his work as a psychologist on the U.S.-Mexico border. Mercado — who is also a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley — has spent a decade researching the trauma suffered by the millions of foreigners who arrive in the country’s southern border. He has done so during four presidencies: Barack Obama’s, Donald Trump’s first, Joe Biden’s and now Trump’s second term. And throughout that time, regardless of whether there was a Democrat or a Republican in the White House, he has been witness to the abuses and high levels of suffering that plague the area.
