2-033 - Undocumented: Exploring the mental health, family well-being, and educational experiences of legally vulnerable immigrant youth

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The legal status of immigrant families is an understudied and critically important ecological context for the development of immigrant youth (Yoshikawa, 2011; Yoshikawa & Way, 2008). Laws regarding documentation status impact access to benefits, including health care and education programs, which affect youths’ well-being. Legal status also affects parents’ psychological and economic welfare, thus directly and indirectly compounding the developmental struggles of their children (Brabeck & Xu, 2010).

In 2011 there were 11.5 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., constituting one-third of the total immigrant population. Their children totaled 5.5 million, 4.5 million of whom were born in the U.S. and are citizens (Hoefer, Rytina, Baker, 2012; Yoshikawa & Kholoptseva, 2013). Thus, on a daily basis, 4.5 million U.S. citizen children in these “mixed status” families endure the chronic risk of deportation of their father, mother, or both. For youth who are themselves undocumented, many benefits of universal education expire at the age of 18, placing college-aged young adults at risk for failure to advance their education, without the privileges of adult citizenship.

This symposium presents three original studies of the impact of undocumented and “mixed” legal statuses among immigrant youth on mental health, family functioning, and educational belonging. The studies incorporate a range of methodologies, integrating qualitative and quantitative techniques, with participants from three different urban regions in the U.S. Our collective discussions will emphasize how the results of these studies may be used to better serve undocumented youth, particularly in educational settings and through public policy.

Sub Unit

• Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Chair

• Amy Marks, Suffolk University

Discussant

• Carola Suarez Orozco, UCLA

Individual Presentations

• Not Being Able to Think, Dream, and Plan a Future: A mixed-methods study of anxiety in Latino undocumented college students lives - Presenting Author: Yuliana Garcia, University of California, Los Angeles; Carola Suarez Orozco, UCLA

• Legal vulnerability among Latino immigrant families: Liminality’s psychological costs - Camila M. Godoy-Delgado, Massachusetts General Hospital; Presenting Author: Amy Marks, Suffolk University; Debra Harkins, Suffolk University; Lance Swenson, Suffolk University

• Sharing undocumented status on college campuses: Implications for a sense of belonging and access to resources - Presenting Author: Dalal Katsiaficas, UIC; Syeda Raza, College of Education, University of Illinois at Chicago