Latinx/@ immigrant inclusion trajectories: Individual agency, structural constraints, and the role of community-based organizations in immigrant mobilities

Immigration is at the forefront of national, state, and local policy struggles in the United States, and Latinx/@ immigrants have experienced increased deportations, detention, and individual threats. A mobilities perspective allows analysis to extend our view of migration beyond frameworks confined to pre- and postmigration, examining trajectories of social inclusion and exclusion that are influenced by multiple factors in the receiving country. The Immigrant Well-being Project, a community-based participatory research project involving university faculty, students, staff, and representatives from 4 community-based organizations (CBOs), was initiated in New Mexico in 2017 to better understand and promote Latinx/@ immigrant mental health and integration by creating change at multiple levels. We began these efforts by conducting an in-depth study of the mental health needs, stressors, current socioeconomic, legal, and political context, and local solutions as experienced by 24 Latinx/@ immigrants and their mixed status families. Five trajectories of immigrant integration emerged: continuous exclusion, simultaneous exclusion and inclusion, continuous inclusion, movement from exclusion to inclusion, and movement from inclusion to exclusion. These diverse mobilities were shaped by participants\u27 social locations, agency, and experiences with CBOs, which played critical roles in creating, maintaining, and/or transforming immigrants\u27 trajectories. However, CBOs could not completely buffer immigrants from the current hostile climate and related stressors that resulted in experiences of exclusion or movement from inclusion to exclusion. These findings add to understandings of immigrant mental health, complex ongoing mobility, and mechanisms of resilience and resistance within the United States and have important implications for policy and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)