Structural Vulnerability Among Migrating Women and Children Fleeing Central America and Mexico: The Public Health Impact of “Humanitarian Parole”

Abstract

Since October 2013, US Customs and Border Patrol has apprehended 15,979 families on the Southwest Border of the US. Daily, migrating women and children from Mexico and Central America that qualify for humanitarian parole are released from immigration detention to a humanitarian aid organization in Southern Arizona. After several days in detention facilities, these families arrive tired, hungry, dehydrated, and with minimal direction regarding their final destination, and adherence to the parameters of their parole. Project helping hands (PHHs) utilizes a network of volunteers to provide the women and children with food, water, clothing, hygiene products, hospitality, and legal orientation. The aim of this assessment was to document the experiences of families granted humanitarian parole through the lens of structural vulnerability. Here, we apply qualitative methods to elicit PHH lead volunteer perspectives regarding the migration experience of migrating families. Using inductive analysis, we found six major themes emerged from the qualitative data: reasons for leaving, experience on the journey, dehumanization in detention, family separation, vulnerability, and resiliency. These findings elucidate the different physical and psychological distresses that migrating families from Mexico and Central America experience before, during and after their arrival at the US–Mexico border. We posit that these distresses are a result of, or exacerbated by, structural vulnerability. Structural vulnerability has life-long health implications for a sub-population of young mothers and their children. The number of migrating families who have experienced traumatic events before and during their migration experience continues to expand and thus warrants consideration of mental health surveillance and intervention efforts for these families. More public health research is needed to better understand and combat the health challenges of this growing population.

Urban Congolese Refugees in Kenya: The Contingencies of Coping and Resilience in a Context Marked by Structural Vulnerability

“…More recently, the concept of structural vulnerability has emerged to provide a nuanced understanding of the health outcomes of migration-affected groups (Cartwright & Manderson, 2011; Quesada, Hart, & Bourgois, 2011; Valdez, Valdez, & Sabo, 2015). Quesada and colleagues (2011) define structural vulnerability as “a positionality that imposes physical/emotional suffering on specific population groups and individuals in patterned ways” (p. 339).…”

“…Although current definitions of structural vulnerability have been useful in understanding the suffering and poor health outcomes of migrant groups in the United States (e.g., Organista et al, 2013; Valdez et al, 2015), there is a need for a conceptual re-molding to fit the experiences of urban refugees in an ever-shifting landscape. The involuntary exclusion of migrants from health-promoting resources has been described as a hierarchical and networked phenomenon in the context of structural vulnerability (e.g., Holmes, 2011; Quesada, 2012).…”

The Coercive Power of Debt: Migration and Deportation of Guatemalan Indigenous Youth

“…However, scholars argue that further criminalization of smugglers only serves to drive up smuggler fees and increases the precariousness and violence that plague current migration routes (Donnelly and Hagan ; Valdez et al. ). While some smugglers have alliances with drug cartels and gangs, the scholarship on smuggling reveals more diverse and complex relationships between irregular migrants and smugglers, many of whom are family members, community leaders, or even government officials (Sanchez ; Vogt ).…”

“…The new laws also criminalized additional forms of assistance such as falsifying documents, providing employment, or aiding in the passage of migrants, and increased fines for smugglers of up to fifty thousand dollars (Lohmuller 2015;Musalo et al 2015). However, scholars argue that further criminalization of smugglers only serves to drive up smuggler fees and increases the precariousness and violence that plague current migration routes (Donnelly and Hagan 2014;Valdez et al 2015). While some smugglers have alliances with drug cartels and gangs, the scholarship on smuggling reveals more diverse and complex relationships between irregular migrants and smugglers, many of whom are family members, community leaders, or even government officials (Sanchez 2014;Vogt 2016).…”

Mental Health and Migration in Mesoamerica: a Systematic Review

“…The physical and psychological difficulties that migrants from Mexico experience are due to the structural vulnerability, defined as the inequality resulting from political, economic, and material marginalization that contributes to oppression through discrimination due to gender, ethnicity and class (25).…”