The recent ramp up of immigration enforcement is having a devastating psychological effect on individuals and families and gives rise to a public health crisis that can affect entire communities.
Under current enforcement policies, immigrants are experiencing increased levels of anxiety, fear, and uncertainty due to heightened immigration enforcement, detentions, and deportations, leading to negative impacts on mental health, including depression and PTSD symptoms. The policies create a climate of fear that causes some immigrants to avoid essential services and community engagement, even among lawfully present individuals. While overall estimates vary, approximately 14-15% of the U.S. population is foreign-born, nearly three-quarters are legally present and almost half are naturalized citizens.
In this issue of the UICDR newsletter we examine the mental health impact of anti-immigrant and xenophobic policies on immigrant communities. This contextualizes the various stressors and traumas experienced across the stages of migration (pre-migration, during transit, post-migration and resettlement) and how to support resilience and healing. Dr. Dana Rusch directs The Immigrant Family Mental Health Advocacy (IFMHA) Program within the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Understanding (im)migration trauma
First, it is important to grasp the series of traumatic experiences that can occur at any point throughout the immigration process. There are a multitude of factors that contribute to why people are forced to leave their home country.
Migration trauma refers to the mental, emotional, and physical stress that results from a combination of pre-migration traumatic experiences, experiences during transit, and the process of resettlement and adaptation in a new country, as well as xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment.
Pre-migration trauma
Trauma in one’s country of origin could involve political persecution, government sanctioned violence or human rights abuses, armed conflict and civil unrest, natural disaster, and economic deprivation. These traumatic experiences often influence one’s decision to leave their country of origin; the decision is often a forced one.
Individuals often face hazardous travel conditions, lack of food and shelter, and exposure to violence during their transit journeys. This may also include sexual and physical violence, kidnapping and economic extortion, human trafficking, labor exploitation or forced labor, and abuse or violence perpetrated by law enforcement officials.
Post-Migration and Resettlement
Post-migration stressors are salient in shaping the mental health of immigrants and may include interaction with immigration detention. Ongoing stressors in the resettlement phase can include language barriers, financial difficulties, precarious work or exploitation, racism and discrimination, fear of deportation, and continued exposure to other forms of adversity.
Xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment
This is institutionalized through federal policies that limit pathways to legal immigration, increase funding for immigration enforcement, detention, and expedited deportations, attempt to end birthright citizenship, and end funding for refugee resettlement and migrant legal aid organizations.
“Migration trauma is often exacerbated by the stress of the resettlement context. Immigrants arrive to country that is unfamiliar and must navigate complex systems of care, often in a new language, under new cultural and social norms, and with limited social support or social capital. Under restrictive and punitive immigration policies, immigrants contend with racism and discrimination, while often lacking access to needed services, or a sense of safety and belonging that is fundamental for health and wellbeing. Immigrants demonstrate resilience and bring unique cultural strengths to this multi-faceted process of adaptation and healing. We need to provide services and supports that mitigate further psychological harm and that uplifts the cultural richness of our communities”, says Dr. Dana Rusch, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Director of the Immigrant Family Mental Health Advocacy Program.
Acculturation can be at odds with hostile immigration policies that restrict immigration and can create barriers to immigrants' ability to adapt to a new culture.
“Two-thirds of immigrants have lived in the U.S. for at least 15 years, and many risked their lives to seek safety in our country. Restrictive and punitive immigration policies often lead to heightened psychological distress that increases risk for depression, anxiety, PTSD and suicidal ideation, among youth and adults”, says Dr. Rusch.
Effects of deportation, forced separation extend beyond individuals, families
The deportation and forced separation of immigrant families crossing into the United States has psychological effects on individuals and families and gives rise to a public health crisis that can affect entire communities. These psychosocial and economic impacts include:
- Children with a parent who is detained or has been deported experience anxiety, anger, aggression, withdrawal, a heightened sense of fear, eating and sleeping disturbances, academic withdrawal, social isolation, trauma and depression.
- Children who experience this kind of family separation face abrupt disruptions in caregiver roles and family routines.
- Families face further financial hardship and instability when a parent is fearful of going to work or if a parent is detained or deported. This can lead to food and housing insecurity, and older children may need to take on jobs to help support the family.
- One in four children in the U.S. have at least one immigrant parent. 86% of which are U.S. born.
- Almost 6 million U.S. born children have at least one parent with undocumented status.
- Immigration raids, detention, and deportation generate fear and mistrust that have ripple effects. Fearful of being targeted, community members become less likely to participate in their religious practices and services, schools and workplaces, health care services, and cultural activities and social services.
As a clinical psychologist whose practice focuses on serving Latino immigrant families, Dr. Rusch has observed greater stress, anxiety, anger and fear as aggressive immigration enforcement escalates.
“It is common for youth to express worry about ICE targeting them or their family. They worry about how to protect parents at work, while grocery shopping, or waking in the community. Children and parents are trying to go about their daily lives with the constant threat of deportation hanging over them. Youth see how the medio portrays immigrants as criminals, they see videos of ICE activity in the community, they hear anti-immigrant messages-- all of this is a form of psychological violence.”
U.S.-born children in mixed-status immigrant families face constant anxiety about their parents being detained or deported. Raids, detention and deportation generate a growing sense of fear and mistrust that resonates throughout the community and affects children in profound ways. The negative short and long-term consequences of immigration enforcement include family separation, housing and food instability, poor academic performance, and profound impacts on children's overall healthy development.
Finding Solutions
The health and well-being of immigrant communities is at a tipping point; how do we prevent this from becoming a nation-wide crisis?
This requires a human rights-based approach to policy that reflects the modern reality of global migration. Only then can we create and enact strategies across community settings (schools, health care settings, workplaces) that are necessary for community belonging. This includes removing language barriers that keep immigrants with limited English proficiency from accessing information and mental health services and providing adequate training and support to providers across sectors of care. Most importantly, it also calls to action the need to defend the rights and needs of immigrants through cooperation with local and state coalitions, and elected officials across levels of government.
It’s imperative that actions are taken across all systems of care to prevent migration trauma from having a continued multi-generational impact on our most vulnerable communities.