A model of collaborative immigration advocacy to prevent policy-based trauma and harm.

Abstract

Objective: Research suggests that antiimmigrant policies enacted in the United States, magnified during the 2016-2020 period, propagate widespread trauma across communities of immigrants (von Werthern et al., 2018). While these policies harm all groups of immigrants, structural conditions (e.g., lack of documentation status, race, ethnicity, country of origin, and other social and legal determinants) shape how they are experienced. To address the widespread traumatic harm inflicted by racist and xenophobic policies, a group of leaders from eight Divisions of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the National Latinx Psychological Association (NLPA) launched an Interdivisional Immigration Project (IIP). Method: The IIP served to develop a model for collaborative advocacy, bringing together mental health providers (i.e., psychologists, social workers), allied professionals, and immigration activists from community organizations across the country. This model was developed over the course of 1 year, coinciding with the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the amplified movement for racial justice. Results: This article describes the key components of the IIP collaborative advocacy model: (a) structuring leadership in a democratic and egalitarian manner, (b) centering and uplifting immigrant voices, (c) forming teams across five U.S. regions, (d) facilitating critical dialogues grounded in liberatory practices, (e) centering trauma and empowerment, and (f) developing advocacy strategies. The IIP collaborative advocacy model is informing advocacy to protect immigrants from harm. Discussion: This model may be used as the basis for ongoing humane immigration policy activism that centers the voices of community activists, and that pushes psychologists and allied professionals to use their positionality to support community-based efforts. Clinical Impact StatementThe current manuscript describes a model of collaborative immigration advocacy developed through the Interdivisional Immigration Project (IIP). The IIP is an initiative that involved leaders from several divisions of the American Psychological Association (APA), the National Latinx Psychological Association (NLPA), and leaders from immigrant activist community organizations across the country. The model may be used by providers of health and mental health services to collaborate with community activists. Collaborative advocacy that is community-based and aimed at supporting humane immigration policies may help prevent further trauma stemming from policies that target and harm immigrants.

Introduction to the special issue on the consequences of immigration policies on children, youth, and families who experience migration-related trauma.

“…Cadenas et al (2024) describe a multidisciplinary project made up of eight divisions of the American Psychological Association and the National Latinx Psychological Association, entitled An Interdivisional Immigration Project. Addressing the systemic level policies and practices in the United States that contribute to the spread of trauma among migrant communities, they suggest a grassroots approach to advocacy that includes egalitarian leadership, regional teams to address regional resource needs, and facilitating critical dialogues to generate advocacy strategies from the bottom up.…”

Advancing a phenomenology of law of migration and displacement: Centering recognition of persons and communities migrating and their lived experience of suffering.

“…It is well established that immigrants and refugees suffer harms as the result of government policies (Cadenas, et al in press). Such policies include deportation and exclusion on the grounds of race, public health, marginalization, and if deportation does not occur, limited access to the benefits of the society, such as health and mental health services.…”