Children’s HealthWatch Executive Director Stephanie Ettinger de Cuba was among the Boston University School of Public Health community members asked share what a second Trump administration means to them personally and to the public health issues that matters most to them—and how we can remain optimistic and embrace opportunities to make progress towards a safer and healthier world. Read her thoughts below:
The well-being of immigrant families in the US is an area of major concern in a second Trump Administration; more than one in four children in the US has at least one immigrant parent.
A high-profile and very real cause for alarm includes his plans to conduct mass deportation. Aside from the huge amount of resources an action like that would require, draining funds from other needed programs, the human and health impact would be enormous. Additionally, threats to end Temporary Protected Status and humanitarian parole for groups such as Haitians and Venezuelans—who are here legally and unable to return to their countries due to unrest and safety issues—means that these and other groups would be pushed ‘out of status’ and thus become vulnerable to deportation. We already know what happens after these kinds of raids and deportations. It is not just the people who are deported who are affected, but also those in their communities who are left with residual stress and uncertainty, and children separated from parents. Prior actions like this have resulted in spikes in preterm births in areas where raids have happened, as well as major psychological and material harm to children.
Less visible than an immigration raid is the weaponization of the social environment and the bureaucratic state undertaken in the last Trump administration and is likely to happen again this time. The increase in hostility toward immigrants—dehumanizing language and false stories such as those circulated during this year’s campaign—lead to an atmosphere of fear, including among those who would not be at risk of deportation (e.g. naturalized citizens).
Plans have already been put forth to rescind eligibility for public supports for mixed status families, where one or more household members are US citizens and others are immigrants, whether documented or undocumented. There has also been discussion of (re)expanding the definition of public charge, a designation that blocks immigrants from adjusting their status to become legal permanent residents (and therefore get on the path to citizenship) if they receive help from particular public resources. Other potential changes include unraveling Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA)—many of whom are now adults with their own young families—in part by the dry but dangerous process of eliminating staff time needed to review and process renewals.
The combination of an atmosphere of fear and these kinds of targeted bureaucratic policy changes will lead again to a chilling effect, scaring people away from accessing vital resources for health. Because the policy changes are complex, seemingly boring or benign, and often not debated publicly in Congress, it is harder to rally public support to oppose them. Yet because these changes are surgically precise in denying resources to millions of immigrant families at once, it is imperative to shed light on these actions and communicate compellingly the harm they cause in order to protect the health and well-being of our immigrant neighbors.