Mental Health & Immigrants

Have you ever been to a grocery store with your parents as a kid and all of a sudden you find yourself lost with them nowhere in sight? Fearing that you would never see them again, yelling their names to try to find them ? What if you weren’t reunited with them until after a long time passed or never? Imagine how children of immigrants fear of never seeing their family.

Intro…

Every year, thousands of people cross U.S state borders in order to give their children a brighter future. This is due to poverty, violence and other problems that their country has which causes them to illegally cross to other countries. It is a risky and very dangerous journey, however worth it to give their children a secure home with enough resources to live a better life. Not only is there fear when crossing the border, but there is more fear in being caught and deported once they live in the United States. Many Latinx people live with fear everyday with the thought of being separated from their family and the new life they worked hard to build. This fear not only impacts the lives of the immigrant parents but the children as well. Problems with mental health is immerged connecting to being an immigrant or being a child of one. Depression, anxiety and trauma are created when children are exposed to the mistreatment of immigrant family members and fear of separation in detention centers.

 [Music]

ICE Agents & effects (trauma) …

During the trump administration, there was one executive order that focused on immigration enforcement where there was an increase of 10,000 additional ICE agents contracted and sent out to detain many unauthorized immigrants.  

Sending out various amount of I.C.E agents highly impacted the fear for the community. Not being able to work or do daily activities due to the fear of being taken and deported caused a high level of stress for immigrants. Not only did this cause stress and fear for the immigrant community, but it also brought mental health problems for the children and family members surrounding them. In North Carolina, there were many check points surrounding the areas in rotations. This made most of the Latinx community to have anxiety and fear of losing family members. Even as citizens, they were afraid of being stereotyped as illegal for being Latin and treated wrongfully by police at the check points. 

Juan: My name is Juan, I live in North Carolina. I’m a 21 year old and me and my parents are illegal immigrants

 Juan: I have an uncle that was deported last year. Me and him were working at the same restaurant. One day a couple of cops just came in. they did not say anything, they went right through the kitchen and threw my uncle to the floor and put the hand cuffs on him. I was really scared when I had to see that. I was and still an illegal immigrant and working illegally just like him. Along with a couple friends of mine went out the door and the owner told us to wait until the cops left. They eventually took him but the cops did not treat him any good. They threw them to the floor, put force on him and I had to see that before I could actually get out. I was in fear that they would come for me and the other coworkers as well. After going home that night I had to break the news to my parents in which my mom broke into tears along with my dad.

Because of how my uncle was treated and detained that day, my family and I were scared to find any information about him in fear of also being detained and treated with violence. We ended up asking a friend who was a citizen to help us find him. After 3 weeks we found that he would be detained for a year and deported afterwards. 

Many families, like Juan’s uncle, were separated due to more surveillance and action of the ICE agents. Most families were not informed by the detainment of their loved ones until weeks after the situation occurred. Not only did this cause fear in how the detained immigrants were being treated but it also affected their family economically. Many families lost their economic providers, leaving them with no way of paying bills. Mothers who lost their husbands were left to fend for themselves and their children to move out of homes that they could no longer afford. When a family member is detained, it can cause an immensely negative outcome to family that depend on them. 

[music]

Juan: now me and my family live with fear of being separated any day at any second. I was so traumatized that day and I was really scared and I didn’t feel comfortable working at the same job I had so I eventually quit that job. Now every time we see a cop we get really nervous and scared that we may get treated the same way.

Latinx children in the United States have high risk of mental health disorders, whether they are surrounded by immigrants in their family or are immigrants as well. They are prone to discrimination, trauma and live with fear of deportation of themselves and their family. With these issues, they are most likely to develop internalized mental health problems such as stress, depression and anxiety. The unnecessary brutality of police officers used against Latinx people does not make matters better. The traumatic situation that Juan and many other Latinx people seeing the horrible ways that immigrants are treated and detained is only one of many ways that contributes to having mental health problems. This situation led him and his family to be traumatized and live with more fear than they already felt. 

[Music]

Detention centers 

Detention centers are locations where immigrants are held, in a similar way to a jail. Sadly these detention centers are in extremely poor conditions . In an article of TIME, Madeleine Joung said that “Adults and children have been held for days, weeks, or even months in cramped cells, sometimes with no access to soap, toothpaste, or places to wash their hands or shower. Some reports have emerged of children sleeping on concrete floors; others of adults having to stand for days due to lack of space. A May report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found 900 people crammed into a space designed to accommodate 125 at most.” 

In the TIME article it also brings up a grieving mothers testimony of her experience in an ICE detention center that was heard in a committee. Yazmin Juarez and daughter Mariee were held for weeks in a detention center where sick and health people were in the same area. The testimony states that within just a week of being detained, Yazmin’s daughter Mariee had “developed symptoms including a fever, cough, diarrhea, and vomiting. “I begged them to do deeper exams, but they [the detention facility’s medical staff] sent us back to our room,” she told Congress. At one point, the staff treated 19-month-old Mariee with Vicks VapoRub, which is not recommended for children under 2.”. After 10 days of being released and taken to a hospital to seek better medical care, Mariee was hospitalized for 6 weeks diagnosed with viral respiratory infection. The mother said “all of the hard work of these doctors came too late. Mariee died on what is Mother’s Day in my country. When I walked out of the hospital that day, all I had with me was a piece of paper with Mariee’s handprints in pink paint”. 

This story is only one of a million stories and testimonies where poor conditions in detention centers is a huge issue that is either covered up or ignored. When people are not informed of what actually occur in detention centers, there is no way to fix the issue. This mother, along with many others will have to live with mental health problems of losing a loved one when it could have been avoided to begin with if given the proper attention. 

[Music] 

Separation of children from parents…

Not only are detention centers given poor conditions but it causes separation of families as well. In the Obama administration, they did detain many immigrants as well, but they tried to never separate the children from their parents. However, During the trump administration, thousands of children were not allowed to be detained with their parents. This separation led to many children being missing with no real answer as to how it happened. One can only assume that the immigrant children died, were trafficked, or adopted illegally. Separation of families can lead to stress and depression. Dr. Ana Maria Lopez, the president of the American College of Physicians said in an interview with CNN that “the effect of this type of event will follow these children into adulthood and into their entire lives. Our federal government is causing a situation that is creating a host of potential health consequences for an entire category of people”. 

By keeping families together, it could help prevent separation anxiety and depression from developing in these children. Also, if family stay together then it would have been less likely for so many children to have been mysteriously lost in detention centers. When a family sticks together, they have the ability to protect and reassure their children of their safety. 

Not only should families remain together, but the treatment of ICE agents and police officers must change as well. The mistreatment and brutality towards Latinx people who are immigrants is unnecessary. Whether one refuses being handcuffed or not, they have been shoved to walls, thrown on the ground and sometimes worse. 

[Music]

Actions contributed for a solution.. 

One way that states in the United Sates have contributed to the community is by denying to allow ice agents in their areas. According to CMS many large cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, as well as smaller cities and communities, have chosen not to cooperate with federal authorities in enforcing immigration laws, including participation in the Secure Communities and Section 287 programs. They said that “To date, cities such as Chicago and New York have stated that they will continue to not cooperate with federal authorities on immigration enforcement because they have no legal grounds to hold apprehended person beyond a limited period and because they depend upon the cooperation of immigrant communities to “protect and serve” the public.” 

 [Music]

Fixing the issue…

A child of immigrants or being one themselves brings on many fears that negatively affect their mental health. It is not their families fault for choosing to provide their family with better opportunities. Mental health is not a common subject to speak about in the Latinx community due to seeing how hard ones parents already works and children do not want to put more on their families plate. With this said, there should be safe spaces for children that are immigrants or have immigrant families where they can talk about how they feel. As children of immigrants, it is also very helpful to have organizations that speak up for those that cannot in our community. Being a citizen or immigrant that can participate in events that give our community a voice is one of the most helpful ways to let out what non-latinx people do not know. 

Ending quote…

Informing others of the issues that a Latinx person lives and experiences is one of the only ways to open the eyes of others. So what will you do to help my community? How will you make a difference to not see children separated from their families and mysteriously go missing from detention centers? 

This podcast was produced by Jennifer Solis for the Spring 2021 Global Health class at Guilford College.