Immigration Enforcement Policies and Latinx Health: State of Knowledge

Abstract

In recent years, immigration enforcement policies have exacerbated Latinx immigrants’ health-related vulnerabilities and threatened the health and well-being of entire communities, including US-born citizen children in mixed-status families. Accordingly, the relationship between health, immigration status, and immigration enforcement has become an important public health issue in the USA, necessitating long-term attention to immigration policies and their impacts. This chapter examines how local and state governments’ enforcement of immigration policies are related to health by presenting the conceptual and theoretical approaches used to conduct this research and inform interventions. We end by identifying future research priorities and intervention needs.