2-178 - Children of Immigrants' Health: Mobilizing Research, Policy and Practice in a Time of Crisis

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The current heightened enforcement of immigration laws poses a serious public health challenge to children of unauthorized parents. Recent executive orders and increased immigration enforcement have resulted in a staggering upsurge in the number of detentions and deportations. These enforcement efforts have led to many Latino citizen children being left without their parents for prolonged, and often, indefinite, periods of time. Parents’ precarious legal status and family separation due to detention or deportation place children at risk for mental health problems and poor academic functioning. Using multiple informants, this symposium will present findings on the impact of parental detention and deportation on Latino school-age children’s academic functioning and accumulation of stressful life events across time. Mental health professionals, teachers, service providers, and policy officials are well positioned to support the well-being of vulnerable mixed-status families and to provide mitigating strategies to support youth access to the public safety net (e.g., Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children; WIC; Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP; and Medicaid/Children’s Health Insurance. In light of this pressing immigration crisis and its negative effects on children, this symposium also reports on survey findings, from multiple states and cities, on mitigating strategies to protect children’s access to the public safety net. Recommendations for clinical practice, research, and public policy on behalf of these vulnerable children will be provided.

Sub Unit

• Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Chair

• Lisseth Rojas-Flores, Fuller Graduate School of Psychology

Discussant

• Gabriela Livas Stein, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Individual Presentations

• Parental Detention and Deportation and the Academic Functioning Latino Citizen Children - Presenting Author: Maria Mechure, Fuller Graduate School of Psychology; Non-Presenting Author: Lisseth Rojas-Flores, Fuller Graduate School of Psychology; Non-Presenting Author: Mari Clements, Fuller Graduate School of Psychology

• Accumulation of Adversity Following Parental Detention and Deportation: Stressful Life Events and Mental Health Outcomes - Presenting Author: Lisseth Rojas-Flores, Fuller Graduate School of Psychology; Non-Presenting Author: Larisa Grams-Benitez, Fuller Graduate School of Psychology; Non-Presenting Author: Karina Muro, Fuller Graduate School of Psychology

• Mitigating Strategies to Protect Youth Access to the U.S. Safety Net in Mixed-Status Families - Presenting Author: Sarah Rendon Garcia, Harvard University; Non-Presenting Author: Ajay Chaudry, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Hiro Yoshikawa, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Trenel Francis, Doctoral Student, New York University, Steinhardt