UC Merced Magazine | Volume XVIII, Issue IV

Researchers Say Immigration Enforcement In California is Detrimental to Public Health

Professor Maria-Elena Young

By Alyssa Johanson California is known across the world for having some of the most welcoming policies for immigrants. But despite calling itself a sanctuary state, research conducted by UC Merced and UCLA shows California immigration enforcement is harming the health of many of the state’s Latino and Asian immigrants. UC Merced public health Professor Maria-Elena Young said while they may appear to be completely unrelated issues, immigration enforcement policies and people’s physical and mental health are indeed linked. “We found that having contact with the immigration enforcement system is bad for people’s health,” she said. From 2018-2020, Young and colleagues at UCLA surveyed 2,000

foreign-born adults —1,000 Latino and 1,000 Asian — across California. Surveys asked about direct and indirect contact with immigration enforcement as well as about each participant’s physical and mental health. Questions included whether a person had been racially profiled, seen immigration authorities in their neighborhood, knew someone deported or had been deported themselves. Those responses were linked with each individual’s health outcome data. Self-rated health (SRH) was the measure used to gather information from respondents. According to the National Institutes of Health, SRH is commonly used in psychological research, clinical settings and in general population surveys. Respondents rated their health as excellent, very good, good, fair or poor.

Analysis revealed three major findings: People had higher levels of psychological distress, were more likely to report worse health and would be more likely to delay needed medical care the more contact they had with immigration enforcement. “It’s a pretty solid base of evidence that when the enforcement system has direct impact on people’s lives, there are immediate harms to their well-being,” said Young. The research showed that Latino participants had overall higher levels of exposure to immigration enforcement — 50 percent of all Latino respondents knew somebody who had been deported, compared with 12 percent among Asians. However, when analyzing the health outcomes, there was no difference between the two racial groups.

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