Limits to Neurosurgical Care for an Undocumented Immigrant in the United States

Documentation status is a well-recognized social determinant of health in the immigrant population of the United Sates. Lack of financial means and fear of legal repercussions can delay medical attention, limit treatment options, and decrease patient follow-up. This is reinforced by current government policies that limit financial assistance in emergency situations and deny coverage of preventative or follow-up care. Here we report a case of an otherwise healthy 24-year-old undocumented immigrant who presented to a rural United States emergency room with new-onset seizure, blurry vision, and headache. The patient was admitted to the neurosurgical service where he was diagnosed and treated for a symptomatic arachnoid cyst. Here we review current healthcare legislation that restricts access to preventative and follow-up healthcare in the United States. This case highlights the ways in which the undocumented immigrant patient population remains negatively impacted by these policies, often leading to late presentation and limited neurosurgical treatment options.

“We are not the people they think we are”: First-generation undocumented immigrant belonging and legal consciousness in the wake of deferred action for parents of Americans

On 20 November 2014, President Barack Obama introduced Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) as a temporary relief for undocumented immigrant parents raising citizen children in the United States. DAPA’s implementation stalled indefinitely following a court-issued injunction in 2015, subsequent legal contestation, and a Supreme Court decision in 2016 upholding the original injunction. I purport that both DAPA and its failure to implement constitute sites from within which to critically examine the legal consciousness and sense of belonging of undocumented participants. By bridging scholarship on legal consciousness and belonging, this article examines how Latino first-generation undocumented immigrants from Los Angeles, who considered DAPA, understand their unlawful presence and assert belonging in the United States (US). This article draws on participant observation in Los Angeles, California, including four DAPA legal information forums and 24 in-depth interviews following DAPA’s court injunction with undocumented parents who intended to apply to DAPA. Data reveal a legal consciousness imbued with normative and value-based notions of substantive citizenship including parenthood, law-abidingness, and contribution. In light of DAPA’s failure, participants draw on these narratives to counter-assert their belonging and deservingness of DAPA. Ultimately, this case draws attention to how undocumented, first-generation immigrant legal consciousness is more complex than previously ascertained, and how DAPA shapes immigrants’ claims to a lawful presence.

Immigration and Gender as Social Determinants of Mental Health during the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Case of US Latina/os

While men and women make up a similar number of COVID-19 cases, and are equally likely to know someone who has become ill due to the virus, the gendered and systemic implications of immigration during public health emergencies among minority groups in the United States are empirically underexplored. Using the SOMOS COVID-19 Crisis National Latino Survey, we conduct a series of intersectional analyses to understand the extent to which personal experiences with COVID-19, gendered structural factors, and spillover effects of US immigration policies impact the mental health of US Latina/os during a public health emergency. The results show that among Latinas, knowing an undocumented immigrant and someone ill with COVID-19 increases the probability of reporting worse mental outcomes by 52 percent. Furthermore, being a woman increases the probability of reporting the highest level of mental health problems by 30 percent among Hispanic people who know someone with COVID-19 and an undocumented immigrant. These findings indicate that the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak among US Latinas and Latinos are entrenched in gendered and systemic inequalities.

Intensified Liminal Legality: The Impact of the DACA Rescission for Undocumented Young Adults in Colorado

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program provides qualifying undocumented immigrant youth with significant benefits. These benefits exist in a state of tension because they are temporary, making the status of DACA recipients precarious. In this article we draw on survey and interview data collected with DACA recipients in Colorado, along with community stakeholder interviews and observations to examine the liminally legal experience of recipients, both before and after Donald Trump’s announced intention to terminate the program. Focusing on their experiences of precarity across educational, economic, and emotional spheres, we document the negative and lasting consequences that the loss of DACA status would have for them. Given the rapidly shifting legal context of the DACA program, we argue that liminal legality varies in intensity based on political context and place. While undocumented young adults are acutely aware of the uncertainty of this moment, we also show how they are demonstrating resilience in the face of increasingly harmful immigration policies. The liminal legality of DACA status, which has worsened in the recent political context, underscores the urgent need for a permanent legislative solution.

The Trope of the Papers: Rethinking the (Un)Documented in African American Literature

I argue for a reconceptualization of undocumentedness, the experience of being undocumented, from an experience that is simply a result of the modern immigration regime to an experience that is a result of interlocking systems of oppression and resistance to them that has shaped Blackness and the vision for black liberation. I make this argument by defining and tracing the trope of the papers—the use of legal and extralegal documents to examine and document African Americans’ and other people of African descent’s relationship to the nation-state—in the slave narrative and the neo-slave narrative. I offer a close readings of slave narratives, including Sojourner Truth’s The Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850) and Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, and neo-slave narratives, including Toni Morrison’s A Mercy (2008) and Gayl Jones’s Mosquito (1999), to illustrate the significance of the undocumented immigrant in African American literature and demonstrate that writers of African American literature have been thinking intensely about undocumentedness, although not in the way undocumentedness is typically understood.

Dynamics of Distinction and Solidarity within Social Movements: Explaining Relations between Privileged and Underprivileged Groups in the U.S. Immigrant Rights Movement

Undocumented immigrant youths, known as the Dreamers, rose to exceptional prominence in the American immigrant rights movement in the 2000s and 2010s. The Dreamers had considerable success in presenting themselves as assimilated and hard-working patriots worthy of regularization. While this strategy worked well in the media and politics, it also created a distance between the Dreamers and less privileged groups of undocumented immigrants. In 2013, just when they were widely recognized as legitimate, the Dreamers made the remarkable move to change their strategy: rather than presenting themselves as model immigrants uniquely worthy of regularization, they began mobilizing for policies benefiting all undocumented migrants. By documenting and explaining this change in strategy, this paper addresses the broader question of what separates and binds privileged and underprivileged subgroups in social movements.

All immigrants are not alike: Intersectionality matters in views of immigrant groups

In two studies, we investigated how intersecting social categories shape views of immigrants in the United States. In Study 1, we analyzed 310 attributes generated by 92 participants for the category of immigrant and 30 additional immigrant groups with intersecting social categories (e.g. “undocumented immigrant”) reflecting various levels of social status. Using the Meaning Extraction Method (MEM) and factor analysis to examine shared meanings, we identified five factors; further comparative analyses of immigrant groups focused on the first two factors (Vulnerable vs. Hardworking, Drain vs. Asset). The importance of legal status for judgments on these two factors was evident in comparisons of the generic immigrant with four specific legal intersections. An examination of all 31 groups of immigrants showed that higher status groups were perceived as Hardworking (less Vulnerable) and high national Assets (low Drain), while lower status groups varied in Vulnerability perceptions but were generally thought to be Drains on the nation rather than Assets. In Study 2, 270 participants evaluated intersectional immigrant social categories that differed in combinations of higher status (privileged) and lower status (marginalized) social group memberships, using scales based on the terms identified by the factors in Study 1. Participants rated immigrant groups with two privileged statuses as less vulnerable and more likely to be an asset to the nation than immigrant groups with two marginalized or mixed statuses. The utility of a bottom-up intersectional approach to assess stereotype content of immigrant groups is discussed.

Intimate Partner Violence Help-Seeking for Latina Undocumented Immigrant Survivors: Feminist Intersectional Experiences Narrated Through Testimonio

In addressing the grand challenge to build healthy relationships to end violence, social workers continue to engage in helping individuals affected by intimate partner violence (IPV). IPV often results in negative mental health and physical health outcomes. This qualitative study explored Latina immigrant women’s experiences of IPV by using an intersectional Chicana feminist approach. Twenty Latina undocumented immigrants who experienced IPV shared their testimonio interviews to denounce the injustices they experienced when seeking help. A narrative analysis is presented to illustrate some of the ineffective responses the participants experienced when seeking help as well as effective responses that provided them support. The analysis of the survivors’ testimonios also offered detailed stories to help us understand the intersectional experiences related to the survivors’ gender, ethnicity, social class, and undocumented immigration status when seeking help. Providing support to Latina immigrant survivors requires a better understanding of the unique help-seeking barriers they encounter in the United States. Implications from this study suggest that in order to effectively support the health of undocumented survivors of IPV, social workers need to consider trust building and be prepared to respond to the current political climate and institutional barriers when providing services for undocumented immigrant survivors.