Cultivating a Safe Space: How Trust and Immigration-related Competency Shapes Undocumented Students' Mental Health Service Engagement

• In Event: Sociology that Advances Equity in Mental Health

Abstract

Undocumented college students face high rates of anxiety and depression yet remain significantly underserved by mental health systems. While existing scholarship has identified structural and psychosocial barriers to accessing care, less is known about the organizational and relational conditions that make help-seeking possible. Drawing on focus groups and interviews with undocumented college student participants, mental health providers, and campus undocumented student services staff, this paper examines two mental health programs offered by Immigrants Rising, a national immigrant-serving organization. We find that trust is a central and undertheorized mechanism of service utilization for this population. Specifically, we propose a three-part framework in which trust operates across mutually reinforcing dimensions: institutional trust, which functions as a gateway precondition for engagement; cultural competency; and immigration-related competency, defined as provider knowledge of immigration policies, legal vulnerabilities, and the lived experience of illegality. We argue that for undocumented clients, immigration-related competency constitutes a distinct axis of provider trustworthiness. These findings extend cultural competency and therapeutic alliance scholarship and have practical implications for organizations and institutions seeking to serve structurally marginalized populations.

Authors

• Laura E. Enriquez, University of California-Irvine

• Martha Morales Hernandez, University of California, Merced

• R.J. Ronquillo, Immigrants Rising