Parental perceived immigration threat and children’s mental health, self-regulation and executive functioning in pre-Kindergarten.

Abstract

Many children in immigrant households endure unique stressors shaped by national, state, and local immigration policies and enforcement activity in the United States. Qualitative studies find that during times of heightened immigration enforcement, children as young as 3 years of age show signs of behavioral distress related to national anti-immigrant sentiment and the possibility of losing a parent. Using multiple sources of data from 168 racially and ethnically diverse families of children in pre-Kindergarten, the present study examined variability in perceived levels of immigration enforcement threat by parental immigrant status and ethnicity. This study examined associations between immigration enforcement threat and child mental health, self-regulation, and executive functioning and whether parent immigrant status or child gender moderates these associations. We found substantial variability in perceived immigration threat, with immigrant parents and Latinx parents reporting significantly greater levels of immigration threat compared to nonimmigrant parents and non-Latinx parents. Immigration enforcement threat was associated with greater child separation anxiety and overanxious behaviors, and lower self-regulation among boys and girls and among children of immigrant and U.S.-born parents. In contrast to our hypothesis, immigration enforcement threat was associated with higher self-regulation according to independent assessor ratings. Educators and healthcare providers working with young children from immigrant and Latinx households should be aware of the disproportionate stress experienced by immigrant and Latinx families due to a xenophobic sociopolitical climate marked by heightened immigration enforcement threat and racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Buscando la Calma Dentro de la Tormenta: A Brief Review of the Recent Literature on the Impact of Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric and Policies on Stress Among Latinx Immigrants

“…The rise in negative sentiments towards Latinx immigrants has led to the depiction that they are a threat to national security and to the characterization of them as criminals involved in violent crimes and trafficking illegal narcotics. 56 , 57 This is especially true of immigrants from Mexico who were often the target of the 45 th President's anti-Latinx rhetoric in which he accused “Mexico of sending criminals, rapists, and drug dealers to the United States.” 58 To date, most of the research on the internalization of anti-immigrant and anti-Latinx rhetoric and psychological stress has been conducted with children, adolescents, and high school students (see 40 , 59 – 61 ). However, recent research is now highlighting how the current anti-immigrant climate that subjects Latinx immigrant adults to discrimination, deportation, and anti-immigrant rhetoric has contributed to members of the community internalizing these negatively charged messages and labeling them as stressful life events.…”

Preschoolers’ Psychosocial Development, Parents, and Neighborhoods: Towards an Integrative Approach for Immigrant Families

“…For example, in a sample of 1040 youth, despite all living in low-income neighborhoods, adolescents with foreign-born parents had higher levels of internalizing behaviors compared to those with native-born parents (Lara-Cinisomo, Xue, & Brooks-Gunn, 2013). Heightened susceptibility may be due to immigrant parents' cultural preferences for informal care (Brandon, 2004;Fuller-Thomson & Minkler, 2007), the experience of cultural barriers when attempting to access formal care (Buriel & Hurtado-Ortiz, 2000), misunderstandings regarding the government-sponsored programs children qualify for due to precarious parental legal status (Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-Orozco, 2015), and perceived immigration threat (Barajas-Gonzalez et al, 2022;Ursache et al, 2022). Parental perceived immigration threat in the neighborhood for example, has been linked to lower selfregulation and greater overanxious behaviors among preschoolaged children of immigrants (Barajas-Gonzalez et al, 2022).…”

“…Heightened susceptibility may be due to immigrant parents' cultural preferences for informal care (Brandon, 2004;Fuller-Thomson & Minkler, 2007), the experience of cultural barriers when attempting to access formal care (Buriel & Hurtado-Ortiz, 2000), misunderstandings regarding the government-sponsored programs children qualify for due to precarious parental legal status (Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-Orozco, 2015), and perceived immigration threat (Barajas-Gonzalez et al, 2022;Ursache et al, 2022). Parental perceived immigration threat in the neighborhood for example, has been linked to lower selfregulation and greater overanxious behaviors among preschoolaged children of immigrants (Barajas-Gonzalez et al, 2022). More specifically, the higher the perceived threat of immigration enforcement, the more fear and separation anxiety these young children demonstrated.…”

“…In one of the few studies of SES effects in young children of immigrants, preschool-aged children of immigrants with high levels of economic and immigration stress exhibited more behavioral problems (Mendoza et al, 2017). Similarly, lowincome immigrant parents reported high levels of immigrant threat, which were then associated with problems in their preschool-aged children's self-regulation skills (Barajas-Gonzalez et al, 2022). Given that children of immigrants are disproportionately likely to reside in low-SES neighborhoods (Children's Defense Fund, 2017), additional research is warranted to identify the means through which neighborhood SES influences children of immigrants' flourishing and behavioral problems.…”

Neighborhood influences on the development of self-regulation among children of color living in historically disinvested neighborhoods: Moderators and mediating mechanisms

“…This constant threat of familial separation and chronic uncertainty is theorized to have direct impacts on children both through deprivation and threat pathways ( Barajas-Gonzalez et al, 2018 , 2021 ). Although no studies have yet investigated direct impacts of immigration raids or ICE presence on child self-regulation, recent work has shown that immigration enforcement threat more generally is related to self-regulation in children in Pre-K (according to parent report), although it was unexpectedly related to higher ratings of self-regulation by independent observers ( Barajas-Gonzalez et al, 2022b ). This work suggests that neighborhood level factors such as ICE presence and raids—which likely increase immigration enforcement threat for children and families—may have impacts on children’s self-regulation skills.…”