DG: Hi, it’s Dan.

A few weeks ago, we aired an update to our award-winning series, The Fifth Branch, in partnership with our friends at Call to Mind, a mental health reporting initiative from American Public Media.

This week, we’re bringing you another episode from the Call to Mind team.

It dives deep on the unique mental health challenges faced by immigrants in America in a moment of intense pressure and enforcement from the Trump administration.

Here’s Call to Mind host, Angela Davis.

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Angela Davis (AD): You’re listening to Immigration and the Challenge to Belong, a special report from Call to Mind — American Public Media’s initiative to foster new conversations about mental health. I’m Angela Davis. Immigration in the United States may be the most tense issue in the country right now, and it’s not a new one.

Our borders were relatively open to immigration in the 18th and early 19th centuries, but after the Civil War, certain states passed their own immigration laws. Then the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in to say it is a federal responsibility. Ever since, immigration has been a hot button subject. It’s important to note, with the exception of the native people who lived here first, nearly every American traces their lineage to somewhere else to a heritage country. Some ancestors came long ago. Some families arrived more recently. Yet who can enter the United States? Who can stay to work and create a family here and who can become an American? These are all questions reeling around us.

Today, there are more than 53 million people born in other countries who call the United States home. With the experiences they bring come past and present mental health challenges. And that’s what this special report is about. Over the coming hour, we’ll hear about the unique mental health burdens faced by immigrants to the United States. We’ll hear about long standing issues like prejudice, stereotypes, and the pressure to fit in. And we’ll see how recent federal immigration enforcement has rippled through immigrant communities while deeply affecting their well-being.

To get started, I spoke with Amanda Venta. She’s a clinical psychologist and the director of the Youth and Family Studies Lab at the University of Houston, doctor Venta has spent a good amount of her career working with immigrant families along the U.S. Mexico border, and she’s researched how migration can impact mental health.

Amanda Venta (AV): We have seen as long as there have been immigrants, there has been discrimination, there has been xenophobia. Those experiences have strong correlations to every mental health experience you can think of. So we see higher rates of depression, higher rates of anxiety in children. We see higher rates of behavioral problems. All of those associated with those experiences of discrimination and that sense that you don’t belong here in the United States.

We also see in the immigrant community a really disproportionate rate of post-traumatic stress disorder, really high symptoms of this constellation of experiences, including like sleep disturbance and anxiety and emotional symptoms, those sorts of things that together we call post-traumatic stress disorder and that we think originate from traumatic experiences, which immigrants are really vulnerable to.

AD: So there’s a long list of mental health conditions that immigrant communities are more at risk for. And it’s. I guess it’s easy to understand why.

AV: We know that part of the immigrant experience is the migratory experience. Many immigrants choose to come to the United States because things are not okay in their home countries. Most people want to stay home. In fact, unless until their homes become dangerous, because of natural disasters, because of poverty, because of crime and gang violence, war, all of those things are going to expose people to traumatic events.

And then we see that those very same people are then forced to migrate into the U.S. and it’s typically not through an easy channel where everything goes smoothly. It’s typically in ways that are challenging and expose them to trauma as well. So by the time they even arrive at the United States, they come with a very heavy trauma burden that can translate to mental health symptoms.

AD: You live in Texas, where there have been large immigration enforcement operations, especially close to the border, and you’ve worked with many asylum seekers. So talk to us about the unique mental health concerns you’ve seen in that community of people.

AV: Asylum seekers are really misunderstood. I think in the United States, there’s a lot of concern about these big groups of people being allowed into the US without any sort of vetting. We see large groups of asylum seekers doing exactly what they’re supposed to do. They come to a US border. In my case, most of my work has been at the US Mexico border, the Texas-Mexico border. They come to that border or to a border point of entry, and they say for X, Y, and Z reason, I don’t feel safe in my home country, and I would like to exercise my legal right to seek asylum in the United States.

Those people don’t come without any vetting. So they’re vetted both there at the border where they may be given temporary entry into the US, and then they’re vetted over the course of a long, um, immigration court hearing process to make an ultimate determination about their asylum case. Most people don’t know that about asylum seeking families.

They think that they just get carte blanche to be in the US, and that they contribute in some way to crime and unrest here in the US. That’s not true at all. These are folks who have waited days, weeks, months. We’ve even seen families waiting years to be able to make their asylum appointment. All of those things open families up to mental health problems and general chronic stress in their lives.

AD: I want to focus on family separations. What does the data show us about psychological harm of separating families?

AV: Our data speak really clearly and loudly that family separation is bad for mental health. It is bad for the parents mental health, and it is bad for the children’s mental health. For the children, it tends to operate through a path known as attachment. So it threatens the attachment between children and their primary caregivers, of course. Right. Somebody separates you from your kids. It’s going to challenge that bond.

We know that bond is critical for every element of child development. It’s critical for their school functioning. It’s critical for their social functioning. It’s critical for their mental health functioning. So family separation threatens that bond for the parents. We see that family separation is associated with tons of feelings of guilt, and we see symptoms of depression and anxiety associated with it.

AD: What is the psychological impact of raids and deportations on communities who are vulnerable?

AV: I think we really need to think about the impact of those sorts of raids on all of us, not just on vulnerable communities, but on communities at large. And people who live in America are affected by this, right? It makes vulnerable communities less likely to do things like go to school and seek social support services, go to church, go to the doctor, engage in preventative care. Those sorts of things are going to make all of us more vulnerable.

This is making all Americans less healthy, right? If we have segments of the population that are scared to go to school. Segments of the population that are scared to go to the grocery store and buy healthy food, and they’re resorting to the corner store segments of the population that are so scared to take their kid to the pediatrician, right? People who are not engaging in preventative care, that’s going to have knock on effects on all people in our society and all of our public health.

It’s a real danger to public health. In addition to being a threat to what all of us must think of as being Americans, we all, I think, are grappling with what it means to live in a society where people are scared to go to school and people are scared to go to church. It’s the first time, as far as I know in recent memory, that immigration enforcement actions have have happened in those places, and it raises real questions for all of us about what we hold dear as Americans.

AD: That was Dr. Amanda Venta, a psychologist at the University of Houston. We’ll hear from her again later in the hour. You’re listening to immigration and the Challenge to Belong. A special report from Call to Mind and American Public Media. I’m Angela Davis. As we’ve heard the impact of immigration enforcement, the raids and deportations can result in long lasting emotional wounds, especially when families are separated.

Operation Metro Surge was the largest federal immigration crackdown in history. It targeted the state of Minnesota, and while the stated objective was to focus on allegations of fraud and illegal activity by immigrants and undocumented people, arrests happened in many communities, regardless of criminal record or immigration status. The months long operation eventually subsided, but many Minnesotans are still dealing with the fallout. Saint Cloud Minnesota is a midsize city on the Mississippi River. It’s been home to a rapidly growing Somali community. The surge of federal ICE agents stopping and detaining immigrants in the Saint Cloud area created a climate of intense fear and anxiety lasting for months. Many Somali people still feel the effects on their mental health. Minnesota Public Radio’s Kirsti Marohn has this report.

Kristi Marohn (KM): A.H. moved to Saint Cloud, a city in central Minnesota about an hour north of the Twin Cities from his homeland of Somalia 12 years ago, when he was 28. Until recently, he says, Saint Cloud was a good place to live, a little quieter and less busy than the Twin Cities.

A.H.: Minneapolis is crowded. It’s a place with a lot of noise. But I chose this place because it’s calming, and when I want to go to the city, I can just go.

KM: We agreed to use A.H.’s initials instead of his real name because he’s fearful for his safety. Before the recent federal immigration enforcement surge, A.H. says his life was relatively normal going to appointments to the market. But all that changed when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents showed up in Saint Cloud, targeting the city’s Somali American community. In January, residents confronted dozens of ICE agents at a strip mall of Somali owned businesses in Saint Cloud. A local TV station captured video. After hearing news of the federal immigration action. A.H. says he started feeling a lot of fear and stopped leaving his house.

A.H.: So I used to go to the shops. I used to go see people out in public. When ICE came, it ended up with me locking myself in my home and I wouldn’t go out anywhere, he says.

KM: Being stuck at home left him feeling depressed.

A.H.: What? It feels like you’re someone who’s in jail when you’re just sitting at home. Even if someone said to you, we’ll bring you food. But then they say, just sit in your house. Don’t go out that door. It’s like you’re someone in jail.

KM: A.H. came to the U.S. legally and has a green card, but news reports of ICE agents forcibly detaining immigrants shocked and worried him. He says it brought back recollections of his years in Somalia. His father was killed in that country’s civil war. As a child, A.H. suffered an injury that left him disabled.

A.H.: But it feels like the troubles in Somalia. When I was young, I was, I think, two years old when I’m being told that my father had died. Other people in my family were hurt or injured. When it’s talked about, it affects me. Those kinds of memories. When you see the police, you remember those memories.

KM: A.H. says he’s found some release from his fear and stress by talking to a licensed mental health therapist, Ali Adin. Adin opened the Bridge Healing Center in Saint Cloud about four years ago. It provides culturally specific mental health services, mainly for the East African community. Adams says many of his clients are experiencing mental health symptoms as a result of the ICE surge, including anxiety, depression and stress.

Ali Aden (AA): When stress becomes everyday and it’s related to safety and family survival, it’s become chronic.

KM: Aden says for some immigrants like A.H., the federal enforcement Action resurrected difficult memories of war, violence and fleeing their homeland.

AA: They tend to go through a lot of trauma before they get here. So this is not a new wave of trauma. They just reliving their trauma.

KM: Adams says many of his clients are first generation immigrants from East Africa, where there’s a deeply rooted stigma against talking about mental health. But he and other providers have been working to overcome that taboo and encourage people to seek help.

The center for Victims of Torture, an international nonprofit headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota, opened an office in Saint Cloud in 2015. It provides psychotherapy for people who’ve experienced significant physical and mental trauma and sometimes torture. Some are new immigrants and asylum seekers. Others have lived in Saint Cloud for years. Amal Hassan is the center’s community development and education coordinator. She says the recent ICE action caused some people to re-experience past memories of hiding, fleeing or living in constant fear for their safety.

Amal Hassan: A lot of people that came here were like, we thought we were safe. And then seeing people in America getting gunned down, that they had to relive this whole nightmare torture.

KM: Hassan says one client described the fear like a lion that shows up in their room every night.

Amal Hassan: So like every night, I’m re-experiencing some of that torture. Even when you’re going through therapy, you’re seeing providers and you’re taking care of it. It takes a long time to heal from those kind of trauma.

KM: Hassan says during the ICE action. People were afraid to come to the center for victims of Torture’s office for appointments. Telehealth visits don’t always work, she says, because some people share a home with others and don’t have privacy. Hassan met some clients in their cars. She even bought a window shield to help them feel safer.

Amal Hassan: A lot of the clients that right now are describing feelings of like, I feel like I still have to hide. Closing all the windows, I, I’m afraid to even let the sunlight come in because what if they’re outside?

KM: Therapists like Hassan try to help people develop strategies to manage stress and anxiety. She says dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT, a kind of talk therapy, can help people regulate their emotions and increase their stress tolerance.

Amal Hassan: Everything passes. So how do you take care of yourself? How do you prioritize your mental health? And then what do you have control over and what you don’t have control over?

KM: Centracare, the Saint Cloud region’s largest health care provider, also reports seeing an increase in people with mental health symptoms since the ICE surge. Hani Jacobson is a community health nurse and also a Somali-American. She says because of her community’s stigma surrounding mental health, people often talk about the effects in a different way.

Hani Jacobson (HJ): So it’s a lot of physical symptoms. You know, I have increased headaches and my body hurts and my stomach hurts.

KM: Jacobson says getting people to recognize the connection between those physical symptoms and the mental stresses they’re facing is a key to healing. Centracare recently partnered with community organizations to host a class to help people understand the impact of war and violence on mental health, and give them tools to cope. Doctor Kim Tjaden is a family physician with Centracare and part of its Community Health Improvement Team.

Kim Tjaden (KT): One of the phrases we use in trauma informed care a lot is the body remembers, and sometimes saying that to people that will make them understand, oh my, my physical body remembers the trauma that I went through 20 or 30 years ago. And so I have physical pain or physical feelings based on some of this retraumatization.

KM: But Tjaden says some strategies she would typically recommend to people struggling with mental health, like getting outside and moving. Their bodies may not work for those who are afraid to leave their homes.

KT: If you’re living in a military community, or if that’s your perception, you’re not going to want to go for a walk, right? You’re not going to want to breathe that fresh air and be out in the community.

KM: What does help providers say is keying in on people’s strengths and reminding them of their resilience. Amal Hassan says it helps to know their rights as a U.S. resident and what resources are available so they feel less helpless. And providers say the close knit nature of the Somali community also has been an asset during the surge. People shared information, drove others to appointments, and delivered food to those stuck at home. Still, providers like Doctor Tjaden say they’re concerned about the long term impacts of the immigration enforcement.

KT: Especially the young folks who have seen older sisters or brothers or parents, you know, be detained or pulled over when they’re in the car. I mean, there’s a lot of trauma there to unpack. And if the parents are in a place where they are being retraumatized, it’s going to be awfully hard for them to help that child build the resilience to not have some long standing mental issues with that.

KM: And Jacobson says the enforcement surge affected the entire Somali community. Even those who didn’t have a direct encounter with ICE watched what was happening on social media.

HJ: So even if you personally did not experience that trauma, you saw it and it was in your neighborhood.

KM: Now that most ICE agents have left Saint Cloud, A.H. says he’s feeling more hopeful. He started venturing out into the community again, to shops and to his therapy appointments. He encourages people feeling afraid and anxious to reach out to those around them to get the support they need.

A.H.: If you face fear, don’t give up, but come back from it by being in community.

KM: For Call to Mind. I’m Kirsti Marohn from MPR news.

AD: You’re listening to immigration and the Challenge to Belong. A special report from Call to Mind. I’m Angela Davis. There are people walking among us who live with almost unimaginable mental and physical scars. They are refugees and asylum seekers who escaped to the United States from violent and repressive regimes in their home countries. And many need help healing from the torture and state sponsored violence they endured for more than 40 years, there’s been a growing recognition among human rights and mental health advocates that this is a particular type of trauma, one that requires a particular type of treatment.

Minnesota became the first state to open a healing center for that purpose. Founded in 1980, an organization called the center for Victims of Torture went on to open locations across the country and the world. But when the U.S. government deployed thousands of federal agents to Minnesota. The center for Victims of Torture confronted something new. Suddenly, the center was treating trauma triggered by the actions of the U.S. government. Reporter Cari Spencer has more.

Cari Spencer (CS): The center for Victims of Torture operates a clinic in Saint Paul. It’s in an old Victorian style home and is usually a lively hub for physical therapy. Face to face psychotherapy and group support. But in January, room after room at the center was filled with empty chairs. That’s because at the peak of the federal ICE surge in Minnesota, most of the clients were afraid to leave their homes. At the time, program manager Sara Nelson said the clinic’s role model changed overnight.

Sara Nelson (SN): We were not a crisis response clinic. That’s not what we’re trained to do. That’s not what we’re set up to do.

CS: But that’s what it became. The clients, their families, and their Minnesota communities were in crisis. The center’s staff discreetly delivered groceries to ensure clients in hiding could eat. They talked some clients through panic attacks over the phone when ICE was nearby, and they tried to help six clients who were detained by ICE. Nelson says all of them were asylum seekers who had permits to legally work here.

SN: It’s really horrifying to go from giving someone psychotherapy to help them cope with past torture, to have them be disappeared into this detention facility where you know that people have been harmed and that people have died and and to not be able to contact them.

CS: Nelson said. Staff heard from one detained client only because he managed to pass a secret note to a cellmate who was getting released. He scribbled his social worker’s phone number on the note four months later. The man is still in detention. Another client was cut off from her medication, and for weeks the facility would not accept letters from her doctor.

SN: If our clients were experiencing these exact same things in another country and came here, they would qualify for our services as torture survivors. Withholding medical care is a form of torture.

CS: That client has since been released. Two others remain in detention. But it’s not just the detained clients who are suffering. The center for Victims of Torture serves about 300 people in Minnesota who staff say have been reliving past traumas. In January, I spoke with two clients at the clinic. Both are men who recently escaped ethnic cleansing in Ethiopia. Neither of them wanted their names shared or even their voices broadcast in order to protect their safety. Both said what they witnessed in Minnesota reminded them of what they had fled in East Africa.

One of them was a doctor in Ethiopia. He continued to treat sick people even while he was tortured in a concentration camp. He said the persecution of minorities there started with officials using dehumanizing rhetoric. Eventually, he couldn’t drive his car for fear of being targeted because of his ethnicity. Then government forces started going door to door. The doctor said he watched the same thing unfold in Minnesota.

Jill Davidson (JD): Nearly every client I talked to now says this reminds me of back home. This reminds me of what I came here to escape.

CS: That’s Jill Davidson. She’s a social worker at the Saint Paul Clinic.

JD: And they believed that coming here would be a place where they could speak out, where they could protest or even just speak their mind safely.

CS: Davidson says instead of helping people enroll in classes and celebrate milestones, she was talking people through nightmare scenarios. Clients suffered from headaches and flashbacks that, in a turn of events, were triggered by the US government, not the places they’d fled. It’s not what anyone imagined coming to America would mean.

Yasna Shahbazi (YS): Most of them, they were looking forward to the prospect of their life here.

CS: Yasna Shahbazi is a psychotherapist at the clinic. She said many of her patients had been on the cusp of graduating from treatment, but suddenly they were back to basics. That meant helping people regulate their nervous systems with breathing exercises and art therapy. Some clients reported old body pains returning. So she referred them to physical therapists.

YS: They have been through the most harrowing experiences of state violence already, but now they’re back on ground zero again, as if the trauma from the prison happened yesterday.

CS: The ICE surge eventually ended, but that did not bring a sense of lasting relief to the centre’s clients. I checked in again with Sara Nelson, the program director. She says the center for Victims of Torture is at capacity.

SN: We have a waitlist. Like more people are coming to our door asking for services, and we can’t help them because the people that were that are currently in our services aren’t getting better.

CS: Nelson says one of the most crucial steps in treating trauma is creating a foundation of safety for survivors. But after the surge, that foundation feels precarious. Now, many clients are anxiously awaiting the fate of their asylum cases. More and more clients have been called in for hearings in recent weeks, often on shorter notice than before. And all of this comes as the white House celebrates what appears to be a historic low for the number of asylum cases granted.

SN: And if the United States doesn’t want them, where should they go? They don’t have anywhere else to go. It’s not safe back home.

CS: Adding to the fear, not knowing if their cases will be heard fairly. Still, Nelson says staff were recently surprised to learn that one client was granted asylum. She says they’re hoping to celebrate more good news when they can for. Call to Mind in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I’m Cari Spencer. From MPR News.

AD: When Cari reported the story, she asked the Department of Homeland Security to comment on reports of poor conditions at detention facilities. A DHS spokesperson responded, but did not address those claims. Let’s take a break. When we come back, we’ll hear from an expert who says stereotypes pose a real threat to immigrants and that the harm goes back decades. That’s coming up on Immigration and the Challenge to Belong, a special report from Call to Mind and APM.

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AD: Welcome back. You’re listening to immigration and the Challenge to Belong. A special report from Call to Mind an American public media. I’m Angela Davis. During the recent federal immigration enforcement, many immigrants to this country have been characterized as illegal criminals. But those are sweeping claims and in many cases have been revealed to be untrue.

Reporting by our colleagues at Minnesota Public Radio news and APM reports found three quarters of Ice arrestees during Operation Metro surge in Minnesota had no criminal record. But stereotypes about communities of people can be far reaching, and they’re not only misleading, but can also be deeply hurtful. Dr. Helen Hsu is a clinical psychologist at Stanford University, and she’s the past president of the Asian American Psychological Association. Doctor Suh was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and lived her first four years there. Her family immigrated to San Francisco in 1979. Growing up, she knew she and her family were immigrants. She saw the impatience in others when her parents spoke slow, imperfect English and doctor Hsu recognized racism at an early age. But she also felt the constant pressure of a stereotype many Asians in the United States have to deal with.

Helen Hsu (HH): The model minority myth, the way it impacts the community is sort of. There’s an intense pressure to be the high achieving, good grades, law abiding. No problem. Certainly no mental health problems person. And to think that there’s something deeply wrong with you, if you have any problems, which of course, is just being human.

But mostly what I hear from Asian Americans, especially young people, I feel like a total failure. If I’m not like the perfect child, or I feel like I have to conform to the model minority to be accepted. And then what is extremely painful is some people do conform to being the model minority, and they experience racism or negative experiences anyway. And then that feels very shocking and difficult.

AD: Are there any other long standing stereotypes Asians in the U.S. live with that you can share?

HH: One of the most common microaggressions that Asian Americans will share is as a perpetual foreigner. So you could be an Asian American who’s been here for five generations. You may not speak another language. You don’t have any connection to your heritage country. And yet based on your face, your phenotype, people treat you like you’re a perpetual foreigner. And that often has extremely damaging impact over time because it’s chronic. Feeling like no matter what model minority they act like, no matter how much they achieve, how American they feel, how loyal they are, they’re treated like they don’t belong here.

AD: So can these myths then turn into mental health challenges or even mental illness?

HH: It definitely contributes. So we know mental illness is a biopsychosocial factor, a little bit inherited, but a lot from life experiences and the community and the pressures that we live in. There’s a lot of data that actually show that the fear right now of stereotyping, harassment, detention that has contributed to rising levels of anxiety, depression, anger, impact on self-esteem. And it impacts the social health of a community which also impacts mental health.

AD: Given the current news cycle, more people are thinking about the well-being of immigrants. But we know this isn’t a new issue. What are some of the mental health struggles unique to Asian immigrants here in the US?

HH: Many of the Asian American immigrants who are immigrants or refugees, that they may bring trauma and stressors that have come from their experiences, and then they experience new stressors and traumas if they are facing harassment and sort of these barriers once they arrive. And that obviously contributes to the chronic stress, the chronic physical strain of being low income, being overworked. I made a lot of Asian American immigrants who it’s their MD who says, you know, I really think all of this stress and pressure is causing or related to your migraines, your gastrointestinal pain, your body tension. And so I often meet them after they see the doctor.

AD: The most recent census counted more than 25 million people in the United States who identify as Asian American and Pacific Islander. Commonly known as AAPI. Now, it’s important to note the term is very general. It represents many different countries, nationalities, and unique cultures. It also includes those who were born in the U.S. or in their heritage country. Numerous reports find that AAPI adults are the least likely to seek or get mental health treatment. Dr. Helen Hsu says she’s hopeful, though, because young Asians are more open to talking about mental health. Many seek help when they need it.

HH: You could just take a quick look on Instagram, for example, to see more and more Asian Americans of younger generations talking really openly about wanting to be the ones who break intergenerational cycles of trauma, about wanting to connect to care and demanding better trained. Culturally responsive mental health experts.

AD: Intergenerational trauma. That’s a term we hear a lot of these days. And, you know, maybe everyone doesn’t really understand this idea. So can we take a moment to talk about how intergenerational trauma, how it gets passed on?

HH: Maybe a specific example? When I was working in Oakland at Asian Community Mental Health Services, I found myself working with a lot of youth who were American born youth of Southeast Asian refugees. So Lao, Hmong and Cambodian refugees and their children here. And we noticed there were all kinds of emotional mental health and behavioral struggles and problems.

And these were kids who’d never themselves experienced the horrors, what their parents did. And yet, because their parents had never been treated, didn’t necessarily have language, didn’t have support. And so we saw high levels of untreated substance abuse, depression, PTSD that impacted their ability to parent and also to help their kids with the modern struggles their kids might have faced. And so the trauma therefore just continues to pass on.

AD: Looking at today, 2026, immigrants in the United States are dealing with a lot. Regardless of citizenship status. What are you seeing today? What are you hearing in your clinic?

HH: We are definitely seeing an incredible amount of anxiety and not only anxiety for new immigrants or refugees, but people who’ve been here long established that the fact that United States citizens, that people who are legally with green cards have status, have been detained and brutalized and is absolutely terrifying.

And in 23 years as a psychologist, I’ve never quite seen levels like this across Communities. And there’s really an existential and and moral crisis and a real grieving for folks who have made their homes here and truly, like, have contributed to their communities and don’t feel like any other place is their home. And yet to feel this sort of overhanging daily chronic stress, that’s what’s most damaging to the mind and the body, right? To have elevated levels of cortisol, to be hypervigilant as you’re trying to get through your day. That definitely contributes to mood disorders and anxiety problems, and that spirals into all sorts of things.

AD: And I noted that you used the word grief. Grieving is happening. And what do you make of that?

HH: There’s a grief for so many people. So many Asian American immigrants really came here in good faith and really believing that the United States provided better human rights protections than where they were coming from. And was a beacon of of freedom and opportunity, which it has been on some level. And yet what we’re seeing now is that sort of has been falling apart. Things like I thought I could trust, you know, that this was a place where people follow the Constitution. I thought I could trust that I would work really hard at school or at my business, and I would be justly rewarded and treated equally. And there’s a real grief and fear that that is all appears to be falling apart.

AD: That was Dr. Helen Hsu, a clinical psychologist at Stanford University. She also has a private practice called Hella Mental Health. You’re listening to immigration and the Challenge to Belong. A special report from Call to Mind an American public media. I’m Angela Davis.

Psychologist Amanda Venta, who we heard from earlier, spends a lot of her time talking about belonging. A few years ago, she published a study that found young immigrants who felt accepted in the United States did and felt better, and those who didn’t feel accepted were more likely to struggle with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. Doctor Venta says the stakes are high for immigrants, but that everyone in the community is worse off when some neighbors don’t feel welcomed.

AV: We’ve known for quite some time that immigrant communities are resilient and are versatile. Right. So they will find a way to meet needs for them and for their families. We actually see, paradoxically, better health in many immigrant communities than we do in their non-immigrant counterparts. That’s not because of less adversity. Right. They actually have way higher levels of adversity, but they find a way forward. They come together as a community. Right. They come together as families. They use other resources that maybe we’re not so used to thinking about.

Not all mental health care comes from a psychologist, right. It might come from a cultural a member of your cultural group. It might come from a member of the religious group that sorts of things. So I think just because we’re not seeing them doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s untreated, right.

But this is really the first time in recent history that we’re standing in immigrant communities way in terms of being able to even make those resources come together, right? This is the first time we’re seeing immigration enforcement in churches, in schools, in immigration courts, right? For the first time in recent memory that we’re seeing enforcement there. So I’m really concerned that dismantling the supports that the immigrant community has built in their community is going to be really dangerous for their mental health, and that it’ll be dangerous for all of our mental health. I know many non-immigrants who feel very distressed by seeing this in their communities.

AD: So what do we do? How how do communities, states, cities, individuals foster belonging? What do we do?

AV: I think it depends on who we are, right? So I think all of us are are operate at many different levels. At a very basic level, I think we all have a question of whether we can pull somebody in to belonging in our personal lives. Right. Is there a neighbor, is there a pee, in your child’s school? Is there a coworker? Is there somebody who currently feels that they don’t belong that could benefit from your kindness? It doesn’t matter if they’re an immigrant or not, right?

At the end of the day, if you mess up, all you did was be kind to somebody. What a terrible error you made in the day, right? And then we have to really question our policies, right? So I think there’s a common misconception that caring about immigrants means not caring about borders. That’s not true. You can care about immigrants and you can care about national security and borders. You just have to question whether the enforcement actions are really about national security and borders, or whether they’re about xenophobia. So I think at a policy level, we need to be thinking about prioritizing the family. The family is the most important unit for child development.

We have known that for decades. So if we threaten the family, if we pull parents away from children, if we pull spouses away from one another, it’s going to be bad for both spouses. It’s going to be bad for the children. So our policies, whether we let people into the US or not, is not the question. The question is why are we pulling them apart here? Why are we separating them at the border? That doesn’t track, right? That’s not about borders. That’s not about national security. That’s about not respecting the sanctity of the family because it’s an immigrant family.

I’d say the same thing in terms of schools, health care, right? We really need to think about whether those are actually efforts that are designed to keep borders safe and maintain security in the United States, or whether they’re efforts that are meant to frighten immigrant communities. Right. I don’t think immigration enforcement at schools is keeping us safer. I think it’s actually making children and families more frightened, challenging the sense of belonging, not just for the immigrant child, but for every other child in that classroom.

AD: Dr. Venta, you’ve seen a lot in your work and your research from your lens. What do our listeners really need to know? What do we need to understand about the mental health of immigrants in the US right now?

AV: I hope people could understand that the mental health of immigrants is the mental health of Americans. Immigrants might even be on this radio show right now. Right. There are immigrants sitting next to you on the train. They’re immigrants in school with your kids. There are immigrants on TV. There are immigrants in the White House, right? There are immigrants at every level of American society.

They are inextricably intertwined with the health of Americans acting like they’re an other that can be treated differently, that can be deported, that can be denied health care, that can be separated from their children. That’s just a myth. That’s not real. There’s actually immigrants everywhere. And our health as Americans is connected to the health of immigrants. I think we really need to start thinking that way, and we really need to start questioning what we would be, what we would want done to our families, to our children, to us, if we wanted to move to another country.

AD: You’re listening to Immigration and the Challenge to Belong. A special report from Call to Mind and American Public Media. I’m Angela Davis.

We’ve heard throughout this hour that the difficult experiences some immigrants in the United States have can come at a high cost to their mental health. And with the escalated tension around federal immigration policy, many folks born in other countries are navigating new levels of fear and uncertainty, regardless of their citizenship status. That suffering is taking a toll on their well-being. But there’s a survival tool we haven’t heard about yet, and it’s scientifically linked to mental health benefits activism. People who organize and get involved in community issues they care about, report lower rates of anxiety and depression and are in better overall health. This is especially true for immigrant youth. Call to Mind’s Jessica Bari caught up with a woman who found her own well-being through activism.

Greisa Martínez Rosas (GMR): What up, my people?

Jessica Bari (JB): Meet Greisa Martinez Rosas.

GMR: Buenas tardes a todo mi gente Latina. ¿Dónde estamos?

JB: Greisa is speaking at the 2025 Hands Off rally in Washington, D.C.. Tens of thousands protested the Trump administration’s firing of federal workers, its immigration crackdowns, and more.

GMR: So y’all, y’all look so beautiful. I wish you could be in this place. And there’s so many of you. I want you to take a moment to say hi to your neighbor.

JB: Greisa is looking cool. She’s wearing all black and standing center stage in front of a sea of demonstrators holding signs. She’s having fun with the crowd and seems born for this. And she probably was. Greisa is the executive director of United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth led network in the country. Experts told me that activism can serve as a protective tool that has mental health benefits for people who get involved, especially during difficult times. I wanted to meet a U.S. immigrant involved in community organizing, and a researcher said I should talk to Greisa. To understand her story, you need to know more about Greisa’s family and where she’s from.

GMR: I was born among the corn stalks. It’s the place of my ancestral land.

JB: Greisa Martínez Rosas was born in the Central Valley of Mexico in the state of Hidalgo.

GMR: Our family for centuries was able to make a living planting and cultivating corn.

JB: She told me that for many reasons money, opportunity, and wanting a better future for the next generations. Her parents decided to move to the U.S. as undocumented immigrants. Grace is in her mid 30s now and still remembers the journey to Texas. She was seven years old.

GMR: My family decided that our route was going to be through the water, and we picked a spot in the Rio Grande River. I remember how scary it was for me, but I really didn’t want to cry because my dad looked really concerned and my mom also looked scared. And I just remember feeling like, whatever happened, I need to make it to the other side.

JB: And the whole family made it. Dallas became their new home and Grace and her sisters were immediately enrolled in school. Mental health experts talk a lot about the pressure undocumented kids can live with. It’s unlike anything their classmates born in the U.S. have to think about fear of deportation, getting separated from their parents, just knowing they aren’t legal citizens in the country where they live. Greisa had told me she felt the weight of these secrets. She remembers an accomplishment at school that should have made her happy.

GMR: There was this award that was given to the best sixth grade boy and sixth grade girl, and a part of the award was like a big, like recognition and like a school assembly and another prize, a savings bond towards going to college. I really wanted to be that, like sixth grade best girl. But then there was another part of me that was the little girl that like, was just really scared of being seen. Because if I was seen, then I could put myself and my parents and my family at risk of deportation.

JB: Greisa did win. She was named the top sixth grade girl at her school. Getting that early recognition of her academic performance stayed with her. She told me it planted the seed for college and beyond.

GMR: Someone believes that I would be able to go to college, and in my heart, I just knew that even though I was undocumented because I had this college savings bond, I had like a way in.

JB: Greisa was a successful student, always top of her class, but she tried to stay under the radar and not get too much attention. She kept her family’s immigration status a secret. But at the end of her senior year, Congress passed a law making all undocumented immigrants subject to criminal prosecution. Protests erupted across the country, and that sparked something in Grassa.

GMR: I don’t know what drove me to, like, calm my friend Gustavo and for us to talk about organizing our own walkout. I think it was just like the pain that I saw and the fear that I saw again in my parents eyes when I explained to them what this bill was and just my like, I need to do something. And I’m so glad that I did that in my language. I think it was God that said, like, I needed to do something to stand up for myself and my family, and it changed my life.

JB: After college, Greisa launched a career in advocacy work for immigrant rights, and numerous studies have found that community engaged youth have lower rates of depression, anxiety and mental distress. Getting involved serves almost as a protective tool, and those who are active have a higher sense of agency and live with more hope for their future. And there’s also the benefit of finding community through activism. Young people who find others with a shared sense of purpose are less likely to feel lonely and isolated, one researcher told me. This is all incredibly important because immigrant youth are at a higher risk of major depression and suicidal ideation. When I talk to Greisa about her mental health before and after she started to organize, she said there was a clear shift in how she felt.

GMR: I was so ashamed. I just didn’t want to be seen before and after experiencing like what it felt like to not only participate in the walkout, but lead one. I felt like I found myself.

JB: And she says she also found a community outside her family.

GMR: The feeling of meeting other young people that had the same fears that I did that decided to, like, chant out loud and be proud of, like, our immigrant heritage. I could not leave that because it made me feel powerful. Yeah, it made me feel like I belonged.

JB: So back to Grace’s speech from the 2025 hands off rally. Here’s something she said as the crowd cheered her on.

GMR: I am an immigrant. I am undocumented, unafraid, queer and unashamed.

JB: Grace has legal status now, but considering the new levels of contention around immigration policy, I asked if she’d still proudly declare that she’s undocumented.

GMR: Yes, I said that in that speech. I said that two months ago and I said that last week. It speaks to the part of me that for that is true. And I feel like it’s also my responsibility in this moment.

JB: She told me she gets scared sometimes, but it feels like an appropriate response right now. Greisa has a strong community and is proud of the work she does. With United We Dream on Difficult days. She leans on her clear sense of purpose and a lesson she learned from her father.

GMR: I’ve never been more clear that even though it’s some of the most dangerous times to be who I am, which is a queer immigrant leader within the social justice movement. And yet, I think my dad’s sort of teaching lives in my brain and in my heart, which is to say that courage is doing it. Afraid. Anyway, um, I wake up and I do it anyway.

JB: For call to mind. I’m Jessica Bari.

AD: While community engagement can be therapeutic and empowering for people, advocates say it’s going to take more than that to relieve the mental health burdens of immigrants in the United States. Psychologist Amanda Venta, who we’ve heard from throughout the show, says a sense of real belonging is essential. She thinks of belonging like a tapestry, and that immigrants in this country are really good at weaving together a new home or community. But when basic needs are taken away, when families are separated, when a sense of security is ruptured, the result is suffering and fear.

AV: And it seems like in the end, it’s actually simple. That feeling like you don’t belong in a place hurts you. It leads to experiences of depression and anxiety. It even leads to increased risk of suicide. If we’re dismantling the interpersonal tapestry of belonging that keeps immigrants, and I would dare to say all of us healthy and safe from adversity in the world. We’re going to end up with a very vulnerable population.

AD: You’ve been listening to immigration and the Challenge to Belong. A special report from Call to Mind American Public Media’s initiative to foster new conversations about mental health. We’d like to thank Mohammad Ebrahim for his translation. This program was produced and written by our senior producer, Jessica Bari and edited by Stephen Smith. Our technical director is Josh Savageau. And Hans Buetow scored the show. I’m Angela Davis, thanks so much for joining me. To find all our past programs, visit our website at Call to Mind now.org. Thank you for listening to immigration and the Challenge to Belong. A special report from Call to Mind. This is APM American Public Media.

DG: To hear more of Call to Mind’s reporting on mental health, including the latest updates on The Fifth Branch, check the listings of your local public radio station and subscribe to Call to Mind wherever you get your podcasts. 

I’m Dan Gorenstein, this is Tradeoffs.