Exploring and addressing the influences of immigration policy enforcement on Latinx adolescent depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation Restricted; Files & ToC
Lemon, Emily (Spring 2023)
Published
Abstract
Background: Latinx adolescents face significant mental health disparities including high levels of depressive symptoms (38%), suicidal ideation (19%), and attempted suicide (9%). State immigration policy climate and immigration enforcement are a manifestation of structural racism, nativism and ethnocentrism that raise serious public health concerns for Latinx adolescents’ mental health. We explore psychosocial mechanisms of interior immigration enforcement policy on Latinx adolescent depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation and identify community-based intervention strategies.
Methods: We apply a mixed-methods design composed of 1) examining the relationships of statewide immigration-related arrests on Latinx adolescent depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation via neighborhood collective efficacy and school connectedness using a difference-in-difference analysis within a structural equation model framework; 2) Exploring youth perspectives on how immigration enforcement policies impact Latinx youth mental health using photovoice in a youth participatory action research approach; and 3) Through in-depth interviews with youth who participated in photovoice, explore the potential of YPAR as an intervention to reduce adolescent depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation through improving connectedness and collective efficacy.
Results: Overall, these three studies found that immigration policy enforcement adversely influences adolescent mental wellbeing and shapes adolescent ecosystems. The sum of our findings suggest that implementation of immigration enforcement policies like 287(g) may not have directly measurable effects on Latinx youth, but may contribute to negative affect by operating through multiple paths in an adolescent’s ecosystem (e.g., school, neighborhood, interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, living in communities with more aggressive interior enforcement may trigger community resistance and resilience strategies to address the collective harm of policing, detention and deportation of immigrants. We also found that these strengths may be leveraged as intervention strategies to promote Latinx youth mental health.
Conclusions: In sum, immigration enforcement policies that arrest, detain and deport immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization, including those with family ties, influence the social environments of Latinx youth and their mental wellbeing. Understanding and intervening on the paths by which immigration enforcement policies shape Latinx youth social environments and mental health is essential for addressing the adolescent mental health crisis and its unequal burden on Latinx youth.
Table of Contents
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