Abstract
Immigration enforcement actions in the United States drastically alter the lives of immigrants, their families, and communities. Yet, we know little about how enforcement shapes the lives of children of immigrants over time. This chapter explores in-depth and qualitatively the stories of 48 young adults, 18–30 years old, who are US citizens with immigrant parents, and were raised in the state of New York or in the New York City metropolitan area, about the salience of immigration policy in their lives. Young adults describe long-standing impacts of enforcement—even well into adulthood—at which time they understand it to be a cause of hardship or trauma, a source of loss during childhood, or a basis for personal growth and development. Analysis of these young adults’ narratives identifies features of enforcement that increase hardship, as well as factors that may help to ameliorate negative outcomes.
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Notes
- 1.
An essay sometimes required for a college application explaining who the applicant is and why they should be admitted.
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Dreby, J. (2022). Trauma, Loss , and Empowerment: Impacts of Immigration Enforcement. In: Glick, J.E., King, V., McHale, S.M. (eds) Parent-Child Separation. National Symposium on Family Issues, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87759-0_2
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