The high incidence of anxiety and other mental-health symptoms exhibited by many Latino youth, U.S. born and immigrant alike, has long been overlooked. Beyond the common stresses experienced by teenagers the world over, Latino children often face additional fears as the result of discrimination and the precarity of their position in the United States as immigrants or children of immigrants. More than half of Latino high school students surveyed for a study published by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) earlier this year exhibited levels of anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) high enough to warrant a clinical diagnosis.

The new MPI commentary suggests these mental-health conditions are not limited to regions where immigration enforcement is higher, but are national in nature. And fear of enforcement and concomitant anxiety are prevalent among both U.S.-born and foreign-born Latino youth.

The situation may, in fact, have worsened since MPI, University of Houston, and Rhode Island College researchers surveyed hundreds of students in Harris County, TX and several locations in Rhode Island, write Randy Capps and Michael Fix. Latino communities have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19-related infections, death, and unemployment. The combination of pandemic-induced stress, economic hardship, discrimination, and longstanding fears of immigration enforcement are “too critical to overlook,” the commentary says.

Read this commentary here.

KJ