Family Unity, Family Health: Federal Immigration Policy Reform

Human Impact Partners conducted a health impact assessment (HIA) to assess how current U.S. immigration policy, and specifically the threat of detention and deportation, can affect the health and mental health of parents and children living in mixed-status families. If deportations continued at 2012 levels, the HIA estimated that child health, behavioral, and educational outcomes would decline. Households would likely experience higher rates of poverty and diminished access to food due to the absence of the primary household earner. The HIA made several recommendations including that state child welfare plans include policies to promote reunification of children with parents and legal guardians who have been detained or deported; ensuring that the 'Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act' includes components to allow for a direct, clear, convenient, and affordable path to citizenship; and reforming Department of Homeland Security programs and policies to protect the health and well-being of children whose parents or primary caregivers are undergoing detention or deportation proceedings.

Human Impact Partners collaborated with a nationwide group of advocacy, community organizations and academic researchers to complete the HIA.