Aggressive immigration practices, including detention, deportation, and workplace raids are causing widespread emotional trauma among children. So says a study by a team of mental health professionals at UC Riverside’s School of Medicine.
The report, published July 25 in Psychiatric News, suggests that “acute psychological risks” — among both immigrant and U.S.-born children living in mixed-status households — develop from forced family separations, particularly those resulting from immigration enforcement actions, such as detention and deportation.
The researchers propose that immigration enforcement in the United States is a public health emergency for millions of children.
Citing clinical case studies and community-based data, researches said trauma is transmitted across generations and shaped by conditions such as poverty, discrimination, and fear of enforcement.
“We are witnessing the effects of chronic fear, disrupted attachment, and intergenerational trauma on a massive scale,” Dr. Lisa Fortuna, professor and chair of psychiatry and neuroscience at the UCR School of Medicine and the lead psychiatrist behind the report, said in statement accompanying the report. “The threat or reality of separation from a caregiver fundamentally reshapes a child’s development and mental health.”
For instance, researchers cited a national study of 547 U.S.-born adolescents, ages 11 to 16, which found that having a detained or deported family member was associated with elevated risk for suicidal thoughts, “externalizing behaviors,” and alcohol use.
Families who have experienced recent raids have noted behaviors such as anxiety attacks, bursts of tears, and abrupt changes in normal behavior.
That echoes the report, which said that in young children, abrupt caregiver loss has been linked to sleep and appetite disturbances.
The authors note that both pre- and post-migration family separations harm children’s emotional development and academic performance.
Immigrant caregivers, especially mothers, often suffer from trauma, which limits their ability to support their children emotionally.
“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.”
Immigration raids have amplified due to the Trump administration’s pledge to target drug cartels and hardened criminals, the “worst of the worst” in the U.S. They point to decreased border crossings as evidence the raids are working.
As Department of Homeland Security officials noted on Thursday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have arrested several criminal illegal aliens “convicted of heinous crimes including assault, child sex offenses, larceny, and burglary.”
“Just yesterday, ICE arrested rapists, thieves, and other violent offenders. These are the scumbags our law enforcement are arresting and getting out of our country every single day,” said DHS Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin.
Trump administration officials say the nationwide crackdown is the answer to “invasion” of undocumented immigrants.
And while advocacy groups say most of the people being arrested are not criminals, federal authorities say the crackdown is working, pointing to falling numbers of border crossings and daily web posts of hardened criminals who have been apprehended.
In an email response to questions about children impacted by ICE enforcement, an agency spokesperson this week pointed to a policy of non-separation. But they did not address the emotional impact on children.
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not separate families or deport U.S. citizens, but removable parents — absent indications of abuse or neglect — can choose to take their children with them, regardless of the children’s immigration statuses,” the statement said. “Parents who choose to leave their children in the U.S. have the option to designate a third-party caregiver. This has always been the case.”
But as federal agents’ dragnet has blanketed Southern California, and the nation, they have often separated families from a breadwinner of the family, and at times also a key source of stability for a child, advocates say. In many cases, the families say that detainees who are also the heads of a households are often not hardened criminal, but people who have built lives, with families and homes in the U.S.
Advocates and detainees say many of the detentions have lacked due process and led to the detainment of U.S. citizens or those on a legal track toward residency or citizenship.
As national debates around immigration continue, the UC Riverside report urged 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.
The report also outlined methodology that is proving more effective and ethical than traditional mental health interventions, such as systems of care and community-partnered approaches.
“Healing for immigrant children and families arises not only from clinical intervention but from the restoration and reinforcement of the protective relationships, cultural traditions, and communal ties that support resilience,” according to the study.
“Psychiatry must take an active role — not just in treatment, but in advocacy,” co-author Dr. Kevin Gutierrez, an assistant clinical professor of health sciences in the UCR Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, said. “The mental health of immigrant children is inseparable from the systems that shape their lives.”
Staff Writer Anissa Rivera contributed to this report.