A new report from the University of California, Riverside warns that aggressive immigration enforcement practices in the United States are fueling a public health emergency for children in mixed-status families.
The report, published in Psychiatric News, was authored by mental health professionals in the UCR School of Medicine and outlines how detention, deportation and workplace raids are contributing to widespread emotional trauma among both immigrant and U.S.-born children.
“Psychiatry, as both a clinical discipline and a social institution, cannot remain on the periphery,” the authors wrote. “The current moment calls for a reexamination of how structural and intergenerational trauma are diagnosed, understood, and treated.”
The study details how children experience chronic anxiety, developmental disruptions and academic difficulties due to fear of family separation. Infants and toddlers may suffer attachment issues, while school-age children show signs of fear and anxiety, and adolescents often take on adult responsibilities, a phenomenon known as “parentification.”
“We are witnessing the effects of chronic fear, disrupted attachment, and intergenerational trauma on a massive scale,” said Dr. Lisa Fortuna, chair of psychiatry and neuroscience at UCR and lead psychiatrist on the report. “The threat or reality of separation from a caregiver fundamentally reshapes a child’s development and mental health.”
The report urges members of the media, policymakers and clinicians to confront the “human costs” of enforcement-driven immigration systems and to prioritize the emotional wellbeing of the youngest and most vulnerable.
“It’s hard to see how current enforcement can ever be humane,” said coauthor Dr. Kevin Gutierrez. “These practices create chronic stress and trauma in children and meet criteria for PTSD.”
The report also includes case studies and community data that researchers say illustrates how trauma transfers across generations, and is made worse by poverty, racism and the constant threat of enforcement.
Fortuna and Gutierrez sat down with UCR News to discuss the report, which can be found here.
The latest wave of immigration enforcement raids began earlier this summer and has continued despite ongoing legal challenges that have placed limits on some enforcement tactics.
Federal agents have conducted high-profile operations across Southern California, including one this week in Los Angeles that coincided with a speech by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Since the surge began, at least two people have died during these immigration enforcement operations, including a farmworker in Camarillo who fell from a greenhouse in July, and a man struck by a vehicle after fleeing a Home Depot in Monrovia on Thursday.
The Los Angeles Unified School District celebrated the new school year earlier this week, but the joy was short-lived after a 15-year-old boy with disabilities was detained outside Arleta High School on Monday, according to District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho.
“This is the exact type of incident that traumatizes our communities; it cannot repeat itself,” Carvalho told reporters.