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Thesis Remix

Recent figures estimate 12.1 million undocumented immigrants live in the U.S. (Baker, 2017), 692,298 of which have pending immigration court cases (TRAC, 2018a). Despite legal protections in other areas of the U.S. justice system, there is little opportunity for relief for adults going through deportation proceedings (Koh, 2017a) and no right to government funded representation (Hausman & Srikantiah, 2016). In Texas, where the proposed research will take place, 79.4% of individuals in FY2018 did not have legal representation in immigration proceedings (TRAC, 2018c). Comparably, 85.3% of deportation proceedings in FY2018 resulted in removal from the U.S., 9 out of 10 of which involved Latinx individuals (Greene & Burnett, 2018). There is little research on the effect of immigration court on the well-being of immigrants, but the aforementioned circumstances suggest removal proceedings may foment distress (Brabeck, Sibley, & Lykes, 2016). Although research has demonstrated the protective effects of social and religious support for immigrants in other contexts (e.g., Cardoso & Thompson, 2010), and the detrimental effects of negative cognitions (i.e., hopelessness and helplessness) on Latinx well-being (e.g., Polanco-Roman & Miranda, 2013), two important areas remain unexamined. First, these risk and protective factors have never been examined in the context of immigration court nor in immigrants with ongoing legal proceedings. Second, the effect of legal support on well-being has not yet been studied. To examine this relation, I will recruit adult participants at an immigration court in Houston with the aid of a non-profit organization. Participants will answer questions related to social, religious, and legal support; mental and physical well-being; and questions related to hopelessness and helplessness. In the approach to this study, I am guided by the risk-protective/interactive model (Fergus & Zimmerman, 2005). Thus, I hypothesize aggregate support will be positively related to mental and physical well-being, meanwhile, hopelessness and helplessness will be inversely related to well-being. This study will provide first data on putative risk and protective factors in relation to the health of immigrants with open removal proceedings and the findings may inform policy-making related to support for this group.

Social support is essential for maintaining physical and psychological health. Attachment security is important for seeking and using social support, and several studies provide evidence for attachment-based differences in perceptions of social support, with individuals with secure attachment describing greater social support. However, perceived social support may vary depending on culture and cultural values, and, thus, the link between attachment style and social support may be culturally moderated. Therefore, using a sample of 560 Latinx young adults, the current study examined whether the cultural value of familismo moderated the relation between attachment and social support. The results indicate that familismo moderated the relation such that the effect of attachment on social support appears to be larger among those with lower levels of familismo. Exploratory analyses revealed that this pattern also exists in a sample of non-Latinx young adults but only when examining paternal attachment. Further, exploratory analyses also uncovered relations between familismo and attachment with the mental health of Latinx young adults such that familismo moderated the relation between paternal attachment and depression. These findings highlight the role familismo and cultural values may play in the relation between attachment and social support or mental health outcomes.

Supplemental material, Supplementary_Table_1 for Trauma and cultural values in the health of recently immigrated families by Alfonso Mercado, Amanda Venta, Craig Henderson and Norma Pimentel in Journal of Health Psychology