Cumulative Experiences of Immigration Enforcement Policy and the Physical and Mental Health Outcomes of Asian and Latinx Immigrants in the United States

Abstract

Immigration enforcement policies in the United States and other nations have long been enacted and implemented as intentional tools of racial control. There is mounting evidence that immigration raids, arrests, and deportations in the United States are associated with poor immigrant health outcomes, but this research has primarily focused on associations between health and single, specific enforcement actions or experiences that may not capture the entirety of immigrants’ experiences with racialized exclusion. Further, there has been little examination of Asian immigrants’ experiences with enforcement in the United States. This article assesses the relationship between Asian and Latinx immigrants’ physical and mental health and their cumulative experiences of immigration enforcement. We analyze responses to a 2018 population-based telephone survey of 1,103 Asian and Latin American immigrants in California. Participants were asked about seven distinct exclusionary immigration and local law enforcement experiences and their self-rated health (SRH) and psychological distress. We tested the association between each enforcement experience and SRH and psychological distress, controlling for covariates. After creating a cumulative measure of exclusion by summing participants’ total number of enforcement experiences, we examined the association between cumulative enforcement experiences and SRH and psychological distress and tested interactions by ethnicity and citizenship. While a greater proportion of Latinx than Asian participants reported enforcement experiences, each additional enforcement experience was associated with poorer self-rated health and greater psychological distress for both groups. This article suggests that the overall immigration enforcement system, from surveillance to deportation, is associated with worse health outcomes for immigrants.

Policing Asian communities in the United States: a systematic literature review and discussion

“…Journal of Criminal Justice, Policing: An International Journal, Police Quarterly). The remaining studies appeared in a sociology journal (Baluran, 2022), a medicine/public health journal (Mooney et al, 2018) and journals representing other disciplines (De Trinidad Young et al, 2022;Edwards et al, 2019;Medina et al, 2022;Schwartz and Jahn, 2022).…”

“…Most studies were cross-sectional, with eight (50%) using data collected from one or more samples at a single time point (Baluran, 2022;De Trinidad Young et al, 2022;Graziano and Gauthier, 2019;Vogel, 2011;Wu et al, 2011Wu et al, , 2012Wu et al, , 2013Yuan et al, 2022). Seven (43.7%) studies were repeated cross-sectional, meaning the data were collected from different people over more than one period such as 60 months of state-level hospital ER admissions (Chu and Song, 2015;Edwards et al, 2019;Greenleaf et al, 2008;Medina et al, 2022;Moon and Corley, 2007;Mooney et al, 2018;Schwartz and Jahn, 2022).…”

“…Most of the studies' sample members included only Asian residents (75%, n 5 12; Baluran, 2022; Chu and Song, 2015;De Trinidad Young et al, 2022;Edwards et al, 2019;Graziano and Gauthier, 2019;Mooney et al, 2018;Schwartz and Jahn, 2022;Vogel, 2011;Wu et al, 2011Wu et al, , 2012Wu et al, , 2013Yuan et al, 2022); four studies (25%) included Asian residents and police officers (Moon and Corley, 2007;Greenleaf et al, 2008;Ozkan et al, 2016;Medina et al, 2022). Among the sixteen studies, five included sample members from California (De Trinidad Young et al, 2022;Graziano and Gauthier, 2019;Mooney et al, 2018;Vogel, 2011;Yuan et al, 2022); four studies included sample members from New York City; and five studies (Baluran, 2022;Edwards et al, 2019;Medina et al, 2022;Ozkan et al, 2016) used national-level samples. Other studies included sample members from a "Midwestern state" (Moon and Corley, 2007) and a "Pacific Northwestern state" (Greenleaf et al, 2008).…”

Beyond “Chilling Effects”

“…48 There is evidence that the enactment of inclusive state-level policies, such as those that limit cooperation of state and local law enforcement with federal enforcement efforts, are associated with improved health insurance coverage among Latinx noncitizens and may suppress some of the harmful effects of restrictive enforcement policies. 49,50 policies result in barriers to seeking and obtaining health care and ultimately their physical and mental health, 32,51 understanding the multiple effects of immigrants' day-to-day encounters with the enforcement system can inform needed interventions and policies to protects their ability to obtain care in a timely manner. Ultimately, efforts to dismantle the policies that make up the enforcement system will likely improve immigrants' access to health care.…”

“…Immigrants’ access to care is critical for their well-being. As evidence mounts that immigration and law enforcement policies result in barriers to seeking and obtaining health care and ultimately their physical and mental health,32,51 understanding the multiple effects of immigrants’ day-to-day encounters with the enforcement system can inform needed interventions and policies to protects their ability to obtain care in a timely manner. Ultimately, efforts to dismantle the policies that make up the enforcement system will likely improve immigrants’ access to health care.…”