Five Questions for Rosa Castaneda

Rosa Maria Castaneda, a research associate in UI’s Labor, Human Services, and Population Center, is coauthor of “Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America's Children.” She answers five questions about her research, her next project, and the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s newly issued guidelines on the conduct of raids.

Five Questions Archives

December 6, 2007

1. Why focus on worksite immigration raids?

It’s safe to say there’s a broad consensus that current immigration policy should be revised. But there’s no agreement as to how to do that. There does seem to be some consensus though to shift toward domestic enforcement—zeroing in on reducing the undocumented population here. The number of immigrants arrested through worksite raids—one of the strategies to catch, punish, and deport immigrants—has increased sevenfold from 2002 to 2006. And will likely continue rising.
For this report, we wanted to find out what happens during raids, how children are affected, and how the community responds. We explored these questions by studying three of the largest immigration raids conducted in the past few years. Our study offers a systematic analysis of what happens, beyond the anecdotal stories in the media.

2. How are children, and the larger immigrant community, affected?

Raids inevitably affect kids. For every two persons arrested, one child is affected. Most of these kids are U.S. citizens and most are 10 and under. So by implication, literally millions of kids nationwide are at risk of being separated from their parents.

After a large-scale raid, community members scramble to find and rearrange care for the children. Some kids spent weeks or months in the care of extended families, babysitters, neighbors, and, at one site, landlords. Some went from having two parents in the house to one, and these families endured severe financial hardship. Some kids missed days or weeks of school. Some immigrant families hid in their homes and basements for days or weeks following the raids because they were afraid. Basics such as groceries, milk for the kids, and diapers had to be brought to them. For some kids, these destabilizing experiences induce emotional and psychological problems, and they exhibit behavioral changes like changing sleep patterns, loss of appetite, and more aggressive behaviors. In the most serious cases, they experience depression, separation anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidal thoughts.

It was impressive to see though that individuals, community and business groups, schools, churches, and some public agencies took steps to bring assistance to kids. They helped families avoid even more dangerous circumstances. This is why we recommend that public and private institutions make plans to ensure that kids aren’t left alone, and develop outreach strategies to let people know it’s safe to seek assistance.

3. How did you gain access to these isolated communities and convince people to talk openly?

The study would not have been possible without the generous help of local organizations who were trusted by the affected groups and had cultural expertise. To avoid the threat of bias, we used a couple of different starting points at each site, so that we would have a broad range of community respondents.

Also, we conducted in-depth interviews in Spanish with caretakers in their homes. The interviews were one of the most challenging parts of the study, but they were the crux of the work in many ways. Through these one-on-one conversations, we began to understand the complexity of these families’ lives and the ways kids’ lives had changed. It was very motivating to be able to highlight these real stories.

Some people welcomed having someone to talk to about what they went through. They wanted to be heard. Other people didn’t want to revisit the events or found it difficult to admit they were having trouble providing for their kids. As a researcher, you go in without bias or judgment, but you also bring an empathetic heart so that people feel safe opening up.

4. In news articles since the paper’s release, U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) representatives have said that other law enforcement agencies arrest parents every day. And that parents who are here illegally need to prepare for family disruption. More recently though, they issued new guidelines to address humanitarian issues. How do you respond?

It’s really concerning to hear the initial response because our research brings to light important and fundamental questions about the enforcement and how kids’ lives and well-being hang in the balance. I think most people would agree that enforcement should not be conducted irrespective of the costs. Our government has developed systems and policies designed to meet kids’ basic needs, to ensure they are not left without proper care, and to protect them from psychological and physical harm. These principles should be brought to bear here. Regardless of what one may think of the parents’ decisions, our approach to immigration enforcement does not have to clash with our nation’s values.

There’s also the question of whether there should be equal treatment of different legal infractions, since the vast majority of individuals seized in worksite immigration raids have no criminal violations. Their only charge is being in the country illegally, most just seeking a better life. Many though were not allowed to communicate with their families or lawyers before being transported out of state to a detention facility or deported.

The new ICE measures are absolutely a welcome and positive step. They more appropriately address the humanitarian issues and legal protections for the arrestees. There’s still room for improvement though. It’s also confusing that they only apply to workplaces with 150 or more employees, and that they are “guidelines” and not binding regulations, so they lend themselves to an ad-hoc approach. If they are important enough to issue, they should be consistently applied.

5. What is the next step in your research?

Over the next two years, we’re going to study the long-term impacts of worksite immigration raids. We’re going back to some of the sites and will add new sites. We’ll be asking: How do families cope economically? Do the raids affect student academic achievement? What factors account for differences in well-being over time? Are there long-term psychological impacts? We also want to get a better grasp of how many kids are left behind. What do families decide over the long run? Do parents leave their kids behind so they can benefit from schooling in the U.S.? Or do they return to their home countries and take their kids with them? If so, how many U.S. citizen children are now living in a country that’s new to them, their parents’ country? These are the kinds of questions we seek to answer. We’ll also again develop recommendations for a range of public and private institutions.