Issue Brief

This brief investigates the spillover effects of immigration and public health policies on Latina immigrant women’s health and their access to healthcare in Kansas. Studies have shown that the fear of deportation negatively impacts undocumented immigrants’ health, and the health of their family members. However, geography matters a great deal. Latino immigrants in urban and rural areas experience deportability differently, have access to vastly different resources, are dissimilarly impacted by physical constraints of their respective environments, and their health needs may also differ. Within these different contexts, immigration enforcement actions, such as raids, apprehensions, detention, and deportation ripple to also affect the heath of immigrants’ loved ones, including U.S. citizen family members.

Drawing on research in urban and rural Kansas, we highlight an important matrix between legal status and geographical location. While immigration policies extend a gradation of rights and protections to immigrants and their families based on a variety of legal statuses which provide more or less anchoring in U.S. society, this gradation is experienced differently in small towns and in large cities. Thus, legal status in tandem with a significant expansion of immigration enforcement and policing, translates into a variety of local contexts where immigrants’ health deteriorates while it also limits their access to formal health care.

Amongst undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., the fate of childhood arrivals has garnered greater public sympathy and political support relative to other segments of the population since the early 2000s. People typically imagine childhood arrivals as children migrating alongside or in the hope of reunifying with parents. Undocumented children are assumed to follow a Western normative coming of age trajectory. The dominant portrait assumes they grow up as dependents with access to education and socialization in K-12 schools and make decisions about pursuing higher education, entering the workplace, and family formation as they transition into adulthood.
Despite undocumented childhood arrivals being at the center of the immigration debate over the last two decades, youth who do not follow this linear coming of age trajectory are left in the political fray. Our qualitative research in Los Angeles, California and Chicago, Illinois shows that the common portrait of the undocumented young person growing up in the U.S. does not reflect the diversity of childhood arrivals and the full range of their incorporation and coming of age experiences.
In this brief, we show how the three primary assumptions about the social and institutional contexts that undocumented youth grow up in ignore the diversity of the childhood arrival population and hamper the effectiveness of protective policies. Limited frames have led to policies that exclude a significant segment of undocumented youth. We share stories of lesser-known segments of this population as a corrective to the limited understanding. Widening the frame of undocumented childhood arrivals in the U.S. can support more inclusive immigration reform.

Immigrant students face numerous barriers to equity in public K-12 schools. Extensive research has enhanced our understanding of these barriers, their impact on immigrant children, and how educators and administrators address them. Schools are complex organizations with a range of personnel who ideally work together inside and outside of classrooms to ensure that all students have access to quality education. A complete picture of how schools are supporting immigrant students—and why, at times, they may fall short—must therefore explore how all school-based actors contribute to advancing equity.

This issue brief summarizes findings from a study of school social workers to explain their role and contribution in the collective effort to advance equity for all.

Report co-author Sophia Rodriguez, commented:

‘From this research, we’ve learned about the multiple ways that school social workers advance equity for immigrant students. Consistently, we have heard from these critical actors about how immigration enforcement and the uncertainty of policies impact immigrant students and their families every day. While larger federal and state policies remain precarious at best for immigrants, our research shows that school social workers play a critical role in advocating for immigrant students at school and community levels. Through the relationships and collaborations that they build within and outside the school with community organizations, school social workers reduce inequalities for immigrant families. Continued work is needed to learn about how to increase their ability to broker resources for immigrant students and increase systemic, transformational change in schools. As our research shows, social workers often engage in equity work on their own and instead need to be supported through school, district, and state policies as they build bridges between students, families, and schools.’

The 2020 presidential election is a milestone for Latinos as they have become the largest ethnic or racial minority group in the electorate. Among the 32 million eligible voters, 23% or 7.5 million are immigrants. This figure may not surprise readers since Latinos are frequently equated with immigrants and immigration issues. Although most Latino voters are US-born citizens, foreign born Latino voters have been important in shaping political outcomes from California to New York and they will be pivotal in 2020. In an effort to understand the diversity of the Latino electorate, our focus here is on the political attitudes and behaviors of Latino foreign-born voters in this presidential contest.

Report co-author Dr Stephen Nuño-Perez commented with regard to the brief, ‘Democracy thrives when the diversity of our experiences are heard and acted upon by our governments. This year, immigrant Latinos have their opportunity to reflect on the last four years and makes their voices heard.’ Fellow co-author Dr Adrian D. Pantoja remarked, ‘In the 2020 election, millions of foreign-born Latino voters have the opportunity to respond through the ballot box.’

Authors: Rebecca Lowenhaupt, Julie Yammine, Melita Morales, Paulette Andrade, Boston College; Ariana Mangual Figueroa, Jennifer Queenan, City University of New York, Graduate Center; Dafney Blanca Dabach, University of Washington; Roberto G. Gonzales, Edom Tesfa, Harvard University

In recent years, educational institutions have sought ways to support immigrant students and their communities as they cope with heightened anti-immigrant policies and discourse. Schools serve as key points of contact for immigrant communities for academic and language learning, social integration, and access to a range of social services. These crucial supports have been shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent school closures. The United States has seen important differences in how these school closures have played out across local contexts.

Since 2018, the PIECE research team has worked in partnership with six immigrant-serving school districts across the country to identify promising practices to support immigrant-origin youth and work toward reducing the inequalities they face. They recently engaged their partners in conversations about their experiences to understand how educators in immigrant communities were experiencing and responding to the crisis. Based on two meetings in mid-May of 2020, this issue brief presents some initial findings from this research in progress.

It addresses the following

• How local contexts are influenced by and also shape COVID-19 trends;
• The impacts of COVID-19 on immigrant-serving districts;
• The innovative, creative ways six school districts are adapting and connecting with communities despite the pandemic and school closures.