By: Lisa Rapaport ~ Reuters~ November 21, 2019
Hispanic Americans may experience worsening mental health when immigration arrests spike, a U.S. study suggests.
Researchers examined data on people who identified as Hispanic or Latino in nationally-representative behavioral health surveys administered from 2014 to 2018. Overall, more than one third of these participants reported at least one day of poor mental health in the previous month, and about 11% reported frequent mental distress.
During the study period, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made 440,601 arrests, the study team notes in the American Journal of Public Health. Arrests increased sharply after a series of anti-immigration executive orders in 2017 that authorized a border wall with Mexico, banned U.S. entry for people from several predominantly Muslim countries, and modified ICE policies around arrests and deportation.
Changes in arrest rates varied by state. But each 1-percentage point increase in a state’s immigration arrest rate following these immigration policy changes was associated with significantly worse mental health outcomes for Hispanic people in the study.
“Given that immigration policy continues to be a deeply contested topic, ensuring that the health and social consequences of aggressive enforcement are identified and acknowledged within national debates is a key priority,” study authors Emilie Bruzelius of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York City and Aaron Baum of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City write.
ICE has arrested more than 2 million immigrants living without authorization in the U.S. since 2008, the researchers note. Some previous research suggests that immigration-related anxiety could have a detrimental impact on mental health, particularly among racial/ethnic groups that have been disproportionately targeted for arrest and deportation.
Under current immigration policies, it’s possible that immigration arrests could lead to poor mental health by increasing deportation fears among undocumented individuals and their families and neighbors, the study authors write. People from populations targeted by these immigration policies might also experience more discrimination, which worsens mental health.
Source:Lisa Rapaport ~ Reuters~ November 21, 2019
