Policy and Advocacy Newsletter
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=""]Last month, the Policy & Advocacy team launched Their Future, Their Voice: Centering Displaced Children in Global Protection and...
READ FULL STORYSince January 2025, a wave of new policies has reshaped daily life for refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrant families across the country: the suspension of refugee resettlement, the possible return of “Remain in Mexico,” the end of humanitarian parole for thousands, temporary protected status at risk, and more.
Each of these sounds like a policy headline, but in practice, these changes are a daily source of stress for millions of people, including U.S. citizens with undocumented family members. This isn’t abstract. It’s showing up in how people sleep, work, parent, and plan for tomorrow.
Who’s Actually Affected
It’s a broader group than most people realize. Someone without legal status might have crossed the border without authorization, overstayed a visa, or fallen out of status through no fault of their own. But the reach of restrictive policy goes well past that population. Mixed-status families — where a U.S. citizen child has an undocumented parent, or siblings have different statuses — live with the same fear even though some family members are, on paper, fully protected. It’s the same with lawful permanent residents whose communities are being targeted by enforcement, and asylum seekers who are following every rule of the process but are still waiting years for an answer.
That’s why the effects of these policies extend so far beyond any one person’s immigration case. A single enforcement action can touch a household, a school, a workplace, and a neighborhood all at once.
Uncertainty Is Its Own Kind of Harm
Living without stable legal status means living with the constant possibility that everything could change overnight. Families avoid the doctor’s office. They skip school events. They turn down job opportunities, not because they don’t need them, but because being visible starts to feel dangerous.
That fear doesn’t stay contained to a single decision or a single day. It seeps into everything else: how well someone sleeps, how present a parent can be, how much a person can focus on work or school when part of their mind is always braced for bad news.
Living under that kind of pressure for months or years at a time takes a measurable toll. It’s associated with higher rates of depression and anxiety, and for many people who’ve already lived through violence or persecution, it can bring on symptoms of post-traumatic stress — nightmares, hypervigilance, flashbacks. Some people turn to alcohol or substances as a way of coping with the constant stress. None of this is a personal failing; it’s a predictable response to living for extended periods without safety or certainty.
Detention and Separation Leave Lasting Marks
Being held in immigration detention takes a real toll, even in facilities considered humane by any standard. For many, it echoes the very persecution or violence they fled in the first place. The loss of freedom, the isolation, the uncertainty about what happens next: these aren’t new experiences for someone who’s already survived trauma. They’re painfully familiar ones.
People held in detention show notably high rates of depression, anxiety, and PTSD, both while they’re detained and after they’re released. Some research on detained asylum seekers has found the majority experiencing significant symptoms of depression or anxiety, with roughly half showing signs of PTSD — figures that are hard to look at and impossible to dismiss as incidental.
Family separation compounds this. When enforcement actions split up parents and children, the effects don’t end the moment families are reunited. Kids who’ve been separated from a parent (even for a relatively short time) are far more likely to develop emotional and behavioral problems: trouble forming secure attachments, anxiety, appetite and sleep changes, withdrawal from peers, and behavioral outbursts. For some kids, these effects are still visible years after reunification.
The Limbo Itself Is Exhausting
Waiting indefinitely for an asylum decision, a status update, or news about a loved one’s case wears people down in a way that’s different from a single hard event. It’s ongoing. It touches nearly every part of daily life: healthcare, school, employment, safety.
Why This Matters Beyond the Individual
None of this is just a private hardship playing out behind closed doors. Communities lose neighbors, coworkers, and members. Kids lose stability at school. Local economies lose workers and taxpayers. The consequences ripple outward: to families, to classrooms, to clinics.
What We Believe
Everyone deserves due process, dignity, and a fair shot at safety, regardless of where they started. Supporting that isn’t just compassionate policy — it’s a legal commitment this country has made. USCRI will keep advocating for humane immigration policy and standing with the families living through this.
If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide or would like emotional support, call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline that is available 24/7. If you or someone you know is having a life-threatening emergency, please call 911 or go to your nearest hospital emergency room.
