Precarious Immigration Status Research Articles

Filipino migrant worker organisations, social capital and disaster resilience: An Aotearoa-New Zealand case study

There is increasing evidence that access to social capital, and particularly linking capital can significantly enhance the resilience of minoritized and vulnerable communities impacted by disasters. Understanding levels and types of access to social capital within such communities before disasters occur is an important part of disaster risk management policy and planning. Migrant worker communities, however, remain an understudied group in general, and there are very few published findings concerned with the 3.5 million Filipino migrant workers who primarily live in high-income host countries. This article contributes to addressing this gap with an Aotearoa-New Zealand qualitative case study that aims to increase understanding of the social capital accessed pre-disaster by members of Filipino migrant worker organisations in the Canterbury region. Interview and focus group data indicated that worker organisations facilitated access to local Filipino migrant worker networks, contributing to consistently high reliance on bonding capital, but less access to bridging or linking capital. This trend is linked to the precarious immigration status afforded by temporary work visas, which increased the vulnerability of participants. Only one organisation provided access to the linking capital required to mitigate this vulnerability. Factors influencing the capacity of organisations to develop linking capital appeared to include establishment objectives, length of time since establishment and support from government and industry groups. These findings emphasize the valuable role that migrant worker organisations can play in mitigating disaster risks, through providing connections that facilitate support and resourcing from authorities and industry bodies.

Order Keepers or Immigration Agents? Latine Immigrant Views of Law Enforcement in Healthcare Settings.

Police and security presence in healthcare settings have grown. There are few studies exploring perceptions of these law enforcement agents among US Latine immigrants, who can be vulnerable to immigration enforcement actions due to past and ongoing criminalization and anti-immigrant policies. To explore Latine immigrants' perceptions of law enforcement in healthcare settings. Exploratory, semi-structured qualitative interviews asked participants about their perspectives of law enforcement in healthcare settings. English- and Spanish-speaking adult patients (n = 19) from a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in Los Angeles, CA, serving predominantly low-income Latine immigrants. We used the framework method for analysis to establish a codebook and inform our thematic interpretation. We identified three themes: (1) perceptions of safety offered by police officers are separated from the role of immigration officers; (2) perceptions of police officers are integrated into broader perceptions of the healthcare system; and (3) lived experiences, including immigration status, influenced valence response to officer uniforms and perceptions of officers. Most participants viewed police officers positively as maintaining order and safety, separating them from federal immigration enforcement actions, and reflecting on local, state, and organizational "sanctuary" or immigrant-friendly policies. Individuals with precarious immigration status more often saw officers as intimidating. Immigration enforcement remained a key concern. Differentiating police and security roles from immigration enforcement in healthcare could improve Latine immigrant trust and access. Future studies should explore perspectives of Latine immigrants in localities without sanctuary laws or organizational immigrant-friendly policies.

Wartime, Flight, and Resettlement Realities of Unaccompanied Eritrean Girls in Israel

Abstract We conducted a qualitative study among Eritrean refugees residing in Israel to explore the impact of armed conflict and displacement on adolescent girls’ transition to adulthood. We conducted 19 interviews with young Eritrean refugee women who, as girls and young women, escaped conflict-affected Eritrea and made their way on foot, through Sudan, the Sinai desert, and Egypt to Israel. Our findings reveal how structural and symbolic violence shaped the gendered realities of these Eritrean girls throughout their migration journey. In Israel, while such violence in the forms of precarious immigration status and intimate partner violence were embedded in their everyday lives, participants also drew actively on creative strategies to resist and contest violence.

Unpublished Counterpublics: H. T. Tsiang’s Ellis Island Poems

Abstract The proletarian writer H. T. Tsiang worked and lived in the US under the constant threat of deportation since arriving in the country under the Johnson-Reed Act. This article examines a cache of poetry that Tsiang wrote in the Ellis Island detention center from 1940–1941 and mailed to the painter, book illustrator, and author Rockwell Kent. These poems, which are preserved among Kent’s papers in the form of a toilet paper manuscript, a make-shift chapbook, and typescript sheafs, were roundly rejected by publishers in Tsiang’s time. Yet they speak to his precarious immigration status and his long-term project of constituting proletarian readerships outside US publishing. Tsiang’s unpublished poems, I argue, composed a counterpublic of early Chinese American writing that grew from, and responded to, the conditions of exclusion.Having been detained on both Angel Island and Ellis Island, Tsiang was willing to take the “crooked path” into US cultural memory.

Immigrant students' mental health and intent to persist in college: The role of undocufriendly campus climate.

A plethora of challenges prevents immigrant students, particularly undocumented students, from succeeding in college at the same rate as U.S. citizens. This study drew on national data to operationalize a model based on the undocufriendly campus framework (Suárez-Orozco, Katsiaficas, et al., 2015). A total of 501 immigrant students, including 114 with precarious immigration statuses, completed measures on perceptions of welcoming campus climate, positive mental health, anxiety, and persistence confidence in college. Data were analyzed using path analyses in structural equation modeling. Results suggested that precarious immigration status was linked to lower perceptions of welcoming campus climate, lower positive mental health, and higher anxiety. In turn, welcoming campus climate was linked to higher positive mental health and lower anxiety. The latter mental health variables were predictive of persistence confidence in college. Findings are discussed in relation to federal and campus policies to support immigrant students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

UndocuCare: Strategies for mental health services that affirm undocumented college students’ psychological needs

AbstractThere are an estimated 427,000 undocumented college students enrolled in higher education. Undocumented college students encounter unique challenges associated with their precarious immigration status that impacts their psychological well‐being. In this article, we contextualize the mental health of undocumented college students and the role of college mental health services and professionals in supporting college students’ psychological well‐being. We end with recommendations and, in some cases, examples for campus mental health services, college counseling professionals, and counseling‐related preparation programs to develop policies and practices that affirm and support the mental health of undocumented college students.Practical Takeaways Undocumented college students face a higher education landscape that is riddled with discriminatory public policies and college environments that largely neglect their specific needs and fail to promote their success. Immigration policies shape the well‐being of immigrant students by way of immigration status. For instance, college students with precarious immigration status (lacking access to permanent legal protections) have been found to have lower psychosocial well‐being compared to groups with more secure or permanent statuses (i.e., naturalized citizens). College mental health services are paramount in developing strategies and efforts that affirm the specific psychological needs of undocumented college students. We provide recommendations for higher education institutions in three areas: campus mental health services, college counseling professionals (developing cultural competency for mental health services with undocumented students, engaging in structural changes to affirm undocumented students’ mental health, holding broader campus initiatives to advocate for immigrant rights), and counseling‐related preparation programs.

Pandemic-Related Stress and Resilience Among Latinx Mothers with a History of Depression: Differences by Immigration Status.

This study explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on low-income, Latinx mothers in Southern California with a history of depression, including undocumented mothers and members of mixed status families. Drawing participants from a parent study that provided a maternal depression intervention to Head Start mothers (n = 119), this mixed method study integrates qualitative and quantitative data in a convergent design. Thirty-four mothers completed semi-structured qualitative interviews and standardized questionnaires in the fall of 2020. Mothers shared overwhelming economic difficulties, with the majority reporting that their family income decreased and half reporting that they were unable to pay for housing. Stressors were compounded for undocumented mothers and members of mixed-status families who were excluded from major relief programs. Stress affected maternal mental health, and mothers with precarious status reported differences in functioning. Mothers also identified positive ways that they coped with adversity. Results show that Latinx mothers with a history of depression, particularly mothers with precarious immigration status, continue to suffer considerable economic, social, and emotional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Social workers can support the human rights of this population by advocating for financial relief, food assistance, and the expansion of medical-legal partnerships and physical and mental health services.

The barriers to healthcare access and their impact on health outcomes for people medically uninsured in Canada: A scoping review

Objective: The objective of the scoping review was to summarize the current literature on the barriers to healthcare access and its impact on health outcomes for people who are medically uninsured (including those with precarious or no immigration status) in Canada; identify gaps in the existing knowledge; and highlight implications for practice and policy. Methods: We undertook a systematic search in the electronic databases of PsycInfo, MEDLINE (Ovid), CINAHL, ProQuest Nursing and Allied Health, Web of Science and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global. Inclusion criteria consisted of articles published in English reporting information about barriers to healthcare access or its impact on health among people with precarious immigration status in Canada. Relevant themes emerging from the included studies were reviewed by the research team and organized into three levels of barriers to accessing healthcare. Results: Ten articles were included in this scoping review. Our review found that individuals living with precarious or no immigration status and being denied public health insurance experienced significant obstructions to accessing healthcare services, the result of policy, interpersonal and intrapersonal-level barriers. These barriers include ineligibility for provincial or federal healthcare insurance, negative interactions with healthcare providers, fear of interacting with public services and lack of sufficient income to pay for out-of-pocket healthcare expenses. This resulted in unmet healthcare needs, negative and worsening health outcomes, avoidance of formal healthcare institutions and reliance on emergency care services caused by delays in help-seeking. Conclusions: People who are medically uninsured in Canada experience avoidable negative health outcomes, including higher risk of death because of barriers to access to healthcare. Provincial healthcare insurance should be available for these vulnerable groups to avoid unnecessary health problems and complications and to reduce the burden on the healthcare system. New (im)migrants should receive education on their right to receive health services, and healthcare providers must receive training on how to best support the health and wellbeing of this population.

Structural violence and the uncertainty of viral undetectability for African, Caribbean and Black people living with HIV in Canada: an institutional ethnography

Biomedical advances in healthcare and antiretroviral treatment or therapy (ART) have transformed HIV/AIDS from a death sentence to a manageable chronic disease. Studies demonstrate that people living with HIV who adhere to antiretroviral therapy can achieve viral suppression or undetectability, which is fundamental for optimizing health outcomes, decreasing HIV-related mortality and morbidity, and preventing HIV transmission. African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) communities in Canada remain structurally disadvantaged and bear a disproportionate burden of HIV despite biomedical advancements in HIV treatment and prevention. This institutional ethnography orients to the concept of ‘structural violence’ to illuminate how inequities shape the daily experiences of ACB people living with HIV across the HIV care cascade. We conducted textual analysis and in-depth interviews with ACB people living with HIV (n = 20) and health professionals including healthcare providers, social workers, frontline workers, and health policy actors (n = 15). Study findings produce a cumulative understanding that biomedical HIV discourses and practices ignore structural violence embedded in Canada’s social fabric, including legislation, policies and institutional practices that produce inequities and shape the social world of Black communities. Findings show that inequities in structural and social determinants of health such as food insecurity, financial and housing instability, homelessness, precarious immigration status, stigma, racial discrimination, anti-Black racism, criminalization of HIV non-disclosure, health systems barriers and privacy concerns intersect to constrain engagement and retention in HIV healthcare and ART adherence, contributing to the uncertainty of achieving and maintaining undetectability and violating their right to health. Biomedical discourses and practices, and inequities reduce Black people to a stigmatized, pathologized, and impoverished detectable viral underclass. Black people perceived as nonadherent to ART and maintain detectable viral loads are considered “bad” patients while privileged individuals who achieve undetectability are considered “good” patients. An effective response to ending HIV/AIDS requires implementing policies and institutional practices that address inequities in structural and social determinants of health among ACB people.

Expanding Sanctuary: The City of Sanctuary Movement in London

The City of Sanctuary (CoS) in the United Kingdom aims to create a culture of welcome for asylum seekers and refugees. This is a politically limited approach because it overlooks the effects of other hostile immigration policies. The emergence of the sanctuary movement as ‘Boroughs of Sanctuary’ (BoS) in London brings these shortcomings into sharp focus, as many residents have other precarious immigration statuses. This article examines the extent to which the Lewisham and Southwark BoS initiatives have successfully negotiated and reconfigured sanctuary at a local level to address this urban complexity. In doing so, it engages with different actors, institutions and factions involved in building sanctuary. While the CoS’ exclusionary politics of asylum is still being reproduced in many ways, people with precarious immigration status are co-opting and reconfiguring the sanctuary framework in ways that expand the asylum-oriented focus of the movement and address the broader violence of the hostile environment.

Immigrant Women's Experiences of Domestic Violence in Canada: A Qualitative File Audit.

Domestic violence (DV) experienced by immigrant women is a global health concern. Precarious immigration status, language barriers, and discrimination can lead to reluctance in seeking support. Is a non-profit charitable organization and support center for immigrant women. Participants in this study were immigrant women who attended Changing Together. The aim of this study is to illustrate immigrant women's experiences of DV and identify the community services they access. The files of a social worker at Changing Togetherwere audited for this project. There were 1,034 files available to audit. The six steps of thematic analysis were used to create themes from the notes of each file, specifically to answer the question: what are the experiences of immigrant women with domestic violence and what are the services they access through Changing Together? Three themes were developed: Building Independence, Surviving Abuse, and Services to Support Surviving. Building Independence centres on women building solid foundations to start their lives in Canada to support themselves and their families. Surviving Abuse encompasses the hardships women endured for the perceived sake of their children until there was an event leading to the unavoidable need for change. Services to Support Surviving explores the services women accessed through the social worker at Changing Together. This study highlights the complexities of immigrant women enduring DV in a foreign country. The file notes described women's experiences of living with hardships and endurance of challenges. Further research should identify community resources for this population.

Formal and informal support networks as sources of resilience and sources of oppression for temporary foreign workers in Canada

AbstractIn this article, we explore temporary foreign workers’ (TFWs) access to and experiences with formal and informal supports in Canada. Our study utilized a participatory action research design and four overlapping phases of data collection: individual interviews with current and former TFWs, focus groups, individual interviews with settlement service agencies, and a cross-sectional survey with current and former TFWs. We used an intersectional theoretical framework to analyze these data and explore ways that TFWs interact with formal and informal sources of support for navigating their precarious immigration status and integration in Canada. Our findings show these supports have the potential to both benefit and harm TFWs, depending on their social positioning and availability of institutional resources. The benefits include information that aids settlement and integration processes in Canada, while the harms include misinformation that contributes to status loss. Future research and policy should recognize the complexity of informal and formal support networks available to TFWs. An absence of government support is apparent, as is the need for increased funding for settlement service agencies that serve these workers. In addition, Canada should better monitor employers, immigration consultants, and immigration lawyers to ensure these agents support rather than oppress TFWs.

Policy Change, Threat Perception, and Mobility Catalysts: The Trump Administration as Driver of Asylum Migration to Canada

Almost 60,000 people claimed asylum at Canada's border with the United States between 2017 and 2020, marking Canada's first sustained cross-border asylum migration since the 1990s. Virtually, all entered irregularly via a rural road on the New York/Québec border. The “Roxham Road route” was partly owing to the 2004 Canada/US Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), which allows both states to refuse asylum-seekers on the grounds that the other offers commensurate protection standards yet only applies to official ports of entry. Roughly, 40 percent of the 60,000 who claimed asylum were US residents with precarious immigration status. This article examines the route's emergence and contributes a novel case on decision-making and destination choices for asylum migration. Data are derived from interviews with over 300 asylum-seekers, two dozen experts, and monthly asylum statistics. The central finding is that Trump-administration immigration policies were the major driver for asylum migration yet do not entirely explain the new route, since a relatively small number of US residents departed for Canada. Interviews revealed that while Trump-era policies fostered a climate of fear, individual experiences with immigration enforcement, loss of temporary protected status, or deferred asylum cases were catalysts for migration. Welcoming Canadian rhetoric and liberal asylum policies were only considered in light of risk in the United States, challenging research findings that asylum-seekers are primarily motivated by destination-state policies. The article also offers qualitative methods for connecting asylum data with migrant decision-making and problematizes the STCA's ethics and effectiveness for managing asylum.

Paving the Speedway to the IT Harbor: How Chinese Programming Boot Camp Prepares Chinese Migrants for IT Jobs in the United States

ABSTRACTIn recent years, Chinese migrants have become one primary source of computing professional labor in the United States. Within the Chinese migrant community, the computing profession was depicted as a new framework of success and a harbor to ease the stress caused by precarious immigration status. To successfully obtain a job in the IT industry, many Chinese migrants turned to the Chinese programming boot camp (PBC) for professional training in programming, which made Chinese PBC the intermediary between Chinese migrant professionals and the American companies demanding skilled programmers. In this research based on qualitative interviews with the founders, employees, and clients, I illustrated how Chinese PBC constructed computing knowledge into a set of techniques and skills to solve and present algorism problems. I interpreted this knowledge construction in the context of racialized and mystified computing profession in the Chinese migrant community.

Transnational Family Separation among Migrant Women in Canada: An Intersectional Analysis

AbstractA growing proportion of immigrants enter Canada on temporary resident permits to study or work, or they enter as asylum seekers—all with limited rights or access to permanent residence. As a result, transnational family separation is a growing phenomenon among immigrants who are unable to migrate as a family or who face barriers to family reunification. Using a systems-centered intersectional lens, the authors examine pathways to transnational family separation among immigrant women who arrived in Canada with precarious immigration status. Analysis draws from qualitative interviews with 35 immigrant women living in different regions of Ontario, Canada. Through examining intersecting social systems and processes, the authors analyze how transnational family separation is constituted through embedded gendered, racial, and class processes in Canada’s immigration system and labor market, which normalize family separation as a common experience for racialized immigrants in Canada. Given the harms associated with prolonged family separation, the authors urge the social work profession to advocate for immigration policies that prioritize family reunification and uphold the rights of migrants to maintain family unity.

Precarious reproductive citizenship: gaps in employment protections for pregnant precarious status migrants in Canada

ABSTRACT Understandings of citizenship have increasingly come to include the recognition of family care and reproduction as practices of citizenship and a recognition that migrants who are not citizens nonetheless engage in many practices of citizenship within their host state and rely on their host state for the fulfilment of basic human rights. This paper conceptualizes this intersection of immigration and reproduction as precarious reproductive citizenship, arguing that gaps in entitlements for pregnant precarious status migrants constitute reproductive injustice and present an important challenge for how we understand citizenship and human rights. This conceptualization is illustrated through interviews with women concerning their experiences of pregnancy and new motherhood while having precarious immigration status living in Montreal, Canada. It highlights three employment-related policies: employment discrimination protections, maternity and parental leave, and childcare. In each case, immigration status (directly or indirectly) acts as a barrier to accessing protections and programs meant to support gender equity and overall family thriving.

Legislatively Excluded, Medically Uninsured and Structurally Violated: The Social Organization of HIV Healthcare for African, Caribbean and Black Immigrants with Precarious Immigration Status in Toronto, Canada.

African, Caribbean and Black immigrants face persistent legislative barriers to accessing healthcare services in Canada. This Institutional Ethnography examines how structural violence and exclusionary legislative frameworks restrict the right to HIV healthcare access for many Black immigrants. We conducted semi-structured interviews with Black immigrants living with HIV (n = 20) and healthcare workers in Toronto, Canada (n = 15), and analyzed relevant policy texts. Findings revealed that exclusionary immigration and healthcare legislation shaping and regulating immigrants’ right to health restricted access to public resources, including health insurance and HIV healthcare and related services, subjecting Black immigrants with precarious status to structural violence. Healthcare providers and administrative staff worked as healthcare gatekeepers. These barriers undermine public health efforts of advancing health equity and ending HIV “while leaving no one behind.” We urge continued policy reforms in Canada’s immigration and healthcare systems regarding HIV care access for Canada’s precarious status immigrants.

Protection or police harassment? Impacts of punitive policing, discrimination, and racial profiling under end-demand laws among im/migrant sex workers in Metro Vancouver

In 2014, Canada implemented end-demand sex work legislation which leaves the sale of sex under some circumstances legal. However, immigration policies based on discourses positioning sex work as exploitation and migration as trafficking continue to criminalize many im/migrant sex workers. Despite community reports of punitive policing, limited research has explored how police interactions with im/migrant sex workers have impacted labour conditions since this legislative shift. As part of a longstanding community-based Vancouver study, we drew on the conceptual framework of slow violence to analyze 20 in-depth interviews with sex workers born outside Canada. Despite rhetoric positioning im/migrant sex workers as victims deserving protection, participants described experiences of punitive, racialized, and stigmatizing police treatment. Fear of being ‘outed’ as a sex worker and living with precarious immigration status undermined participants' ability to seek police protections; yet when they did seek assistance after experiencing violence/theft, police were unsupportive or discriminatory. Our findings suggest that policies depicting im/migrant sex workers as victims act not to protect them, but to justify targeted repressive, racist policing that severely undermines women's occupational safety. Our results illustrate the harms of policies conflating sex work with trafficking; demonstrate the inherent opposition between legislative aims to protect those who sell sexual services and to abolish the sex industry; and interrogate who the state affirms as a deserving victim. The full decriminalization of sex work, removal of prohibitions on sex work among im/migrants, and community-led alternatives to the criminal justice system are urgently needed to uphold im/migrant sex workers' labour rights.

How did support systems in Western countries transform and adapt to meet underserviced and marginalized migrants' needs? A scoping review

Prior studies on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on migrants with precarious immigration status (refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants who arrived in a host country fewer than five years ago) have shown that they have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic because of their migration and socioeconomic status. Across the world, support systems for these marginalized migrants at local levels had to be reinvented to face the pandemic and ensure continuity of services. The objective of this systematic review was to provide a portrait of the interventions that were set up to address underserviced and marginalized migrants’ needs in Western countries during the pandemic and to categorize them by area of intervention. We identified peer-reviewed papers published in English and French between March 2020 and February 2022 in MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed and Web of Science. We included original research studies, commentaries, essays and editorials. For grey literature, we searched in Google Scholar and the websites of major health organizations and institutions that worked with underserviced and marginalized migrants. We also consulted the articles’ list of references. We included 31 publications: 15 peer-reviewed articles and 16 grey literature documents. Our results indicated that in order to address vulnerable newcomers’ needs, support systems intervened in the following areas: immigration, health and social services; raising awareness about COVID-19, food security, primary and secondary basic needs; and mental health and control of COVID-19 infection in settings with high concentrations of underserviced and marginalized migrants. Selected interventions adopted a collaborative approach between actors in different sectors. Most of the interventions were carried out by community-based organizations. Our scoping review highlights the role of community-based organizations in improving the living conditions of migrants with precarious immigration status during the pandemic and emphasizes the relevance of intersectoral collaboration as a strategy to respond effectively to the needs of underserviced and marginalized migrants in times of crisis.

Perspectives of service agencies on factors influencing immigrants’ mental health in Alberta, Canada

Newcomers to Canada experience resettlement challenges that affect their mental well-being. Guided by an intersectionality theoretical framework, we sought the perspectives of immigrant service agencies on factors influencing immigrants’ mental health in Alberta, Canada. Data were collected by means of qualitative interviews and focus groups with immigrant service providers. Our data analysis identified seven themes – precarious immigration status, employment discrimination, social isolation, socioeconomic pressures, sociocultural stress, gender and age-related vulnerabilities, and lack of appropriate mental health supports – reflecting the major intersecting determinants of immigrants’ mental health. We propose policy interventions for addressing the mental health vulnerabilities of immigrants.