Impact of COVID-19 on Undocumented Immigrants’ Mental Health
April Yoo, Princeton University
“ICE Raids. Those words covered newspaper articles and social media. My eyes swam over article upon article, fear grasping my heart. The worst fear I have had since I was young was coming true. I was terrified of losing my parents. I was scared of the responsibility that I might have to take on if my parents had to leave my younger brother and me. I translated Facebook posts, reminded my parents to stay calm, and informed them on what to do if ICE came to our door. It became my responsibility to protect them from becoming deported.”
This was written by a 16-year-old daughter of two undocumented immigrants during the ICE raids of the summer of July 2019 - before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The fear and mental distress are evident in the young girl’s mind due to fear of ICE capturing and deporting her parents away from her and her brother. Even in the year 2019 and before, the mix of inhumane conditions of immigration detention centers, poorly handled immigration system, and inadequate healthcare access (mental health sources included) was distressing for undocumented immigrants and family members of undocumented immigrants.
Immigration detention is defined as “the practice of holding individuals in government custody for immigration violations, such as illegal entry or visa overstay, during their removal proceedings” (Sullivan and Mason). By definition, immigration detention is presumed to be civil in nature. Yet, in these detention centers children are “sleeping on floors, changing other children’s diapers” and “families [are] torn apart [at] the border,” which is all part of the inhuman conditions and violations of human rights that are consistently happening at these centers (Kassie). Immigration detention centers started their expansion in the 1980s when “Congress amended the Immigration and Naturalization Act to require the mandatory detention of immigrants with certain criminal convictions” (“Immigration Detention 101”). In other words, Congress required that detention was automatic for any refugees that crossed the U.S. border in any circumstance. Then, in the 1990s, the United States implemented “the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA)” which allowed non-U.S. citizens, including “legal permanent residents” to be jailed in the detention centers or become deported (“Immigration Detention 101”). The creation of these new laws allowed the number of immigrants in detention centers to increase dramatically over the years.
Furthermore, many of the inhuman treatment towards the immigrants are happening by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a federal law enforcement agency, and their mission is to enforce the “immigration law against those who present a danger to our national security, are a threat to public safety, or who otherwise undermine the integrity of our immigration system” (“Who We are”). However, the enforcement of these immigration laws masks the “unlawful strip searches, substandard medical care, and abuse” experienced by many of the immigrant detainees (Freedom for Immigrants). With the detention system now holding as many as “500,000 immigrants each year,” this means that 500,000 people can be subjected to abuse, lack of medical care, and neglect (“Immigration Detention 101”). Additionally, many immigrants are waiting in the detention centers “for a hearing to determine whether they can legally remain in the country while being kept in what is considered “civil detention,” intended to ensure that people show up for those hearings” (Kassie). Therefore, many immigrants are not in the jails for committing crimes rather they are people that are “seeking asylum, visa holders, people who have been granted the permanent right to live in the U.S., people who have lived here for years” (“Immigration Detention 101”). Therefore, this is evidently a large yet hidden problem in the U.S. since “500,000 immigrants'' are being held in the inhumane detention system all across the U.S. Javier Vazquez, an immigrant detainee in Yuba County Jail, recently recounted the lack of mental and medical support he was receiving from the jail facilities. Vazquez states “Those of us who have been through traumatic events in our lives and suffer from PTSD, such as myself, have very little support for our migraine headaches, panic attacks,flashbacks, nightmares, or other PTSD/psychological hardships I suffer from” (Vazquez). Thus, it is imperative to increase awareness of both the mental and health struggles that undocumented immigrants go through in detention centers and outside of these centers.
There are approximately about “46.7 million immigrants currently living in the US” and of those millions, “11 million are undocumented” (Clark, Eva, et al). The population of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. is evidently very large, and COVID-19 has very much obviously worsened the living, health, and mental health conditions of undocumented immigrants and minority groups all over the world. Undocumented immigrants are generally low-income minority groups and they are “more likely to be living in crowded, urban environments and be employed in public-facing occupations that have been deemed ‘essential’ where social distancing has become even more impossible to achieve (Rothman, S, et al). Sincesocial distancing is necessary and recommended to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, this has led to a disproportionate increase in the spread of the virus among the undocumented immigrant community. In addition to a lack of primary care doctors, insurance, and safe living conditions, the undocumented immigrant community has seen an “increase in the percentage of the population that suffers with severe and persistent mental illness as well as substance use” (Rothman, S, et al). Many factors worsen the mental conditions of undocumented community members, such as a significant increase in stress due to lack of stable jobs/income stream, and the effort to social distance from people can escalate feelings of loneliness, adding onto worse “anxiety, depression, and PTSD” (Rothman, S, et al). While the mental health of undocumented immigrants, and everyone else, have generally become worse, undocumented immigrants’ access to mental health resources, such as therapists, are largely unaffordable and it depends on whether the immigrants have “health insurance or the ability to pay out of pocket” (Summers). Given the fact that undocumented immigrants are not allowed to obtain the benefits from the Affordable Care Act, the devasted population cannot have access to “health insurance through Medicaid or state insurance exchanges” (Summers). Therefore, given the increase in mental health troubles since the start of COVID-19, it is imperative that undocumented immigrants are provided the funds and insurance to get basic healthcare, and more importantly, mental health treatment.
Although the inequalities of access to healthcare are a deeply rooted problem in the United States, there can be a couple initiatives that can be taken to slowly help alleviate the lack of healthcare that undocumented immigrants recieve. To begin, immigrants (both documented and undocumented) pay a significant amount of money towards U.S. “federal, state, and local taxes”(Clark, Eva, et al). For example, in the year of 2018, undocumented immigrants living in Texas, using their “assigned Individual Taxpayeer Identification Numbers (ITINs) contributed an estimated $4.2 billion” (Clark, Eva, et al). However, these immigrants do not qualify for COVID-19 financial relief through the “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act” (Clark, Eva, et al). Thus, the first step towards alleviating stress and the pandemic’s burden should be to offer undocumented immigrants COVID-19 financial relief, especially through the (CARES) Act, since the immigrants are contributing a significant amount of their time and money towards the U.S. economy like U.S. citizens.
I propose that we also use telehealth as a means of providing adequate mental health care for undocumented immigrants. Due to the large fear of immigration authorities like ICE, many undocumented folks are cautious about going outdoors, and especially nervous about recieving care from a healthcare provider or hospitals (Summers). For example, “several studies have shown that after immigration raids in their area, undocumented immigrants have higher levels of stress and lower access to healthcare” (Summers). This fear unfortunately “results in decreased mobility of for undocumented immigrants” and is one of the primary factors in causing majority Foundation even revealed that “one in five adults from low-income immigrant families expressed fear of enrolling in public benefit programs because it could put at risk their chances of getting a green card.” Hence, fear of immigration authorities seems to be a huge obstacle between undocumented immigrants and their access to healthcare. Thus, by using telehealth, undocumented immigrants can recieve mental health care (primarily therapy) from the safety of their homes. However, with telehealth comes the problems of providing adequate internet access, computers, and privacy on online telehealth platforms. As a start, internet access and computer/phones could be donated to undocumented immigrant communites through fundraisers and support of nonprofits, such as Freedom for Immigrants. In terms of privacy issues with telehealth platforms and apps, “federal agencies and the health system” need to “establish clear policy guidelines and partner with vendors to develop secure telehealth platforms.” By heading towards this direction of private and safe telehealth mental health resources for undocumented resources, undocumented immigrants can start recieving their desperately needed care, especially during the COVID-19 and the post COVID-19 world.
Works Cited
Clark, Eva, et al. (July 13, 2020). “Disproportionate Impact of the COVID-19
Pandemic on Immigrant Communities in the United States.” PMC.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7357736/.
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https://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/issues/detention-101#:~:text=The%20average%
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Kassie, Emily. (September 24, 2019). “How the US Built the World's Largest Immigrant
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/24/detained-us-largest-immigrant-detenti
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Rothman, S, et al. (June 17, 2020). “Mental Health Impact of the COVID-19 Epidemic on
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https://academic.oup.com/qjmed/article/113/11/779/5858983?login=true.
Summers, Kay. (April 6, 2020). “How COVID-19 Affects Undocumented Workers.” American
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https://www.american.edu/sis/news/20200406-how-covid-19-affects-undocumented-work
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Vazquez, Javier. (June 28, 2021). “This Is a Real-Life, Full-Time Nightmare.” IMM Print.
https://imm-print.com/this-is-a-real-life-full-time-nightmare.
(May 13, 2020). “Who We are.” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
https://www.ice.gov/about.