Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Stuck in between partisan politics and government inaction on comprehensive immigration reform are a sizeable number of mixed-status families, in which some family members are U.S. citizens and other members are non-citizens.  In this manuscript, we examine how immigration policy is impacting Latino children in mixed-status families.  Using a groundbreaking survey sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico (n=1,493), we asked adults about their perceptions of immigration policy and their child’s health using the standard self-rated health measure.  We estimated a series of logistic regressions to understand how Latino parents’ perceptions of immigration policy are associated with their child’s mental health outcomes.  Preliminary findings show that mixed-status families report worse child health outcomes than non-mixed-status families.  We also find that respondents who report anti-immigrant sentiment also exhibit worse health outcomes.  These findings suggest that Latinos views of immigration climate are impacting Latino health and mixed-status families are particularly vulnerable.  The implications of this work are significant for policy makers, health service providers and researchers interested in reducing health disparities among Latino families.