The Biden-Harris administration has already taken swift action on immigration by halting Trump’s border wall and strengthening the government’s commitment to DACA. However, their approach to the broader issues facing migrants and border communities will depend on the administration’s continued efforts and their Democratic allies in Congress. As the administration studies and prepares for its approach to immigration reform, they must recognize all forms of racial and xenophobic discrimination for what they are: a public health hazard. The American Public Health Association is just one of many professional associations and government entities to acknowledge that racism is a public health crisis. These inequities are apparent in disparate diagnosis rates for conditions like asthma, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and now COVID-19.
The additional burden of labor and risk during the pandemic has stacked on top of the unbalanced odds already facing immigrants. As a doctoral candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, I worked with community leaders to survey and interview the predominantly Latinx immigrant population on California’s Central Coast. My colleagues and I found that discrimination was common, based on immigration status, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. When I spoke to community members about their health-care experiences, they shared stories of mistreatment affecting not only themselves but also their community members and family. One individual called this el temor migratorio, a fear that arises from living in precarious circumstances. She said with frustration, “At home they hear this, out there they hear something else. Their parents are full of fear, and the children are being affected, because they’re scared too.”
For immigrants, institutional discrimination is a constant deterrent to accessing health care, especially when it comes to mental health. Even as restrictive policies are reversed, immigrant community members still wonder, “If I use this service, will this information be used against me later?”