Applying a Community Violence Framework to Understand the Impact of Immigration Enforcement Threat on Latino Children

Abstract

Heeding the call put out by the New England Journal of Medicine (2017), we utilize an ecological–transactional model as a conceptual framework for understanding existing literature and for guiding future research on immigration enforcement threat and Latino child development. Using the World Health Organization’s definition of violence, we draw on literature from psychology, medicine, social work, and developmental psychology to outline how the antiimmigrant climate in the United States and the threat of immigration enforcement practices in everyday spaces are experienced by some Latino children as psychological violence. Researchers, teachers, and practitioners are encouraged to be aware of how uncertainty and threat regarding familial safety adversely impacts the lives of Latino children in immigrant households, especially in charged, antiimmigrant climates. Corresponding author: R. Gabriela Barajas-Gonzalez (ritagabriela.barajas-gonzalez@nyumc.org) Author note: We thank the many colleagues and reviewers who provided thoughtful insights and editing to this manuscript. We also thank the hundreds of children, families, health care and education providers who participated in the studies cited in this review. Social Policy Report Volume 31, Number 3 | 2018 ISSN 1075-7031 Social Policy Report is published four times a year by the Society for Research in Child Development.