"Show Me Your Papers": How Immigration Profiling Impacts Latina/o Health

abstract: The Trump administration has paid increased attention to immigration enforcement and deportations. The climate in today’s country has caused a large increase in fear, stress, and overall uneasiness among immigrants, because of these enforcements and deportations. This is something that becomes a complex challenge for many as the uneasiness regarding enforcements and deportations leads to negative health issues overall. Since the rise of immigration raids, detentions and investigations, there has not been a strong focus by state or federal officials, on how Latin American immigrants, specifically Mexican immigrants, are racially profiled regarding their citizenship and overall immigration status. Officials such as these need to address this issue due to the effects it is having on an individual’s mental health and their concern needs to be focused on making everyone in this country feel safe and included, for a more united and productive country. What also needs to be investigated by leaders and federal officials of this country is the effect of worry and concern about deportations on individuals, which may lead to poor mental health, including anxiety and depression. This thesis uses racial profiling and stress theory to examine how being viewed as undocumented affects the mental health of foreign-born Mexicans. Using an innovative survey funded by the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (n=517), Latino adults mostly consisting of first generation immigrants, in this study have been questioned about being worried about deportation, their self-reported physical and mental health, as well as various self-reported indicators of stress. These respondents were also asked how accurately they think non-Hispanic/Latino people can guess their immigration status. A series of logistic regressions were conducted to understand how others view of respondent’s immigration status being correctly profiled, and whether these results affect if they worry about being deported. Mediation analysis is used to explain how the stress of deportation influences physical and mental health outcomes. The preliminary findings suggest that the more accurately respondents believe non-Latinos can guess their immigration status the higher likelihood of reporting poor physical and mental health, thus affecting them in their daily lives