9 Immigration and trauma

Why do people migrate illegally to the United States?

There are limited opportunities for Latin Americans to migrate legally to the United States, and stay permanently. To be allowed entry in the United States people should go to the embassy in their home countries and go through a lengthy process of requesting visa. The application alone costs a lot of money plus acquiring the required documents takes a long time.

The following are the visas that allow entry to the United States, but imply the requirement to go back to the home country:

Tourist visa (called B visa). The person should prove that has enough money to expend as a tourist, and that has roots in the home country to return.

Student visa (called F). The person should show an admission into a college into the United States and that has enough funds to support themselves without working during the time of the study. Scholarships or assistantships often help foreigners prove availability of funds, yet they’re easier for graduate studies. Only the richest people in Latin America can pay for college in the United States as an undergraduate. Most scholarships are for graduate studies.

Employment-based visa (H or J). The company should file a petition in the name of an individual and prove that the employee is not taking the job to an American citizen. This process often costs at least $6.000 to the employer, so it’s very difficult to find a company willing to pay such money.

The following are ways to achieve permanent residence in the United States:

Marriage: If you marry a United States citizen, you can file a petition to become a permanent resident, after long process where you need to prove that you lived together and hold finance together.

Employment: It’s a process similar to gaining a H or J visa. On H visas, the employer is required to sponsor (pay lots of money) for the petition, and they usually do it when there’s no American citizen who can do these petitions.

Asylum: If you can prove that you were in danger of dying in your home country, you can seek asylum in the United States. It’s not something you can request in your home country because, well, you are supposed to be in a rush to escape from your home country. People often enter illegally in the United States to seek asylum afterwards.

As you noticed, the opportunities for legal migration are very limited and most people are unable to meet eligibility. Extreme poverty has never been a valid reason the United States would accept as part of a visa petition. On the contrary, they want only wealthy people migrate to bring money from abroad. That’s way people decide to seek the help of a drug dealer who knows how to sneak you away through the border and put people in the United States. This person is called a “coyote,” and you remain at the service of this person way after your stay in the country.

Immigration as a traumatic experience

Hispanics who are relocated in the United States may have migrated by many reasons that involve a traumatic experience for children. Children may have endured extreme poverty in their home countries, which includes food insecurity, lack of access to health and education, exposure to untreated illness, homelessness, street violence, or political violence. The immigration journey through the U.S.-Mexico border is difficult and dangerous (Martínez, 2018), which may have involved fear, detention, separation from families, physical exhaustion, and social isolation. They may still suffering from the fear of being deported or their parents being deported, the lack of access to health insurance and financial support, and the impossibility to envision a future career.

Narratives of the trauma: People who have been through a traumatic experience may never speak about the traumatic experience (American Psychiatric Association, 2022, Caruth, 1996, Herman, 1992, Leys, 2002, Humphrey, 2002, Martínez, 2018). The narratives of trauma are often silent, hidden, fragmented, or distorted for different reasons.

• The person may just not remember important events related to such traumatic experience because the stress blocks the incorporation of that event into the episodic memory. The memory stays in the body as a feeling, but not as a story being told.
• The person may remember the traumatic event, but they may just not want to talk about it to avoid the awkward experience of having the interlocutor show pity for them.
• The person may remember the traumatic event, but they may wrongly believe they were somehow responsible for the experience they went through. For example, children of divorced parents may believe parents divorced because they were bad kids. There’s always guilt.
• The person may remember the traumatic event, but they may not be aware that it was a traumatic event. They may believe it’s something normal to live in poverty or a violent environment.
• Sometimes the person talks about the traumatic event, but uses weird coping strategies such as humor or laughing at some horrible event they’re telling.
• Sometimes the person talks about the traumatic event as something that happened to someone else. They may have created an alter ego that was the one who has to bear the traumatic memory.
• The person may just be unable to discuss their traumatic event because of fear of retaliation from the part of some authority figure.

Social conflict in Latin America

Colonization: Starting 1492, the Spanish violently took power over indigenous communities, in a slow process whereby the indigenous territories were distributed among few Spanish political figures. Descendants from indigenous peoples and even disempowered Spanish were unable to control their lands, causing unfair distribution of resources. The slave trade added another layer of disempowered population.

Interventionism: Re-colonization from the United States over Latin America started around the 1940’s after the World War II and during the Cold War. The Cold War excused the United States intervention on Latin America to fight against socialist governments. Also, the war on drugs enables military intervention. Treaties of Free Trade with Latin America often come at the disadvantage of local agricultures.

Human displacement: The unequal distribution of land happening in the country side leads to illegal military groups and violence against the small land-owner. Many peasants are forced to leave their own lands, and engross slums in the big cities.

Public defunding: Descendants of the Spanish elite often utilize public resources for their own benefit and engage in political corruption, which defunds public schools and infrastructure (water, streets, energy, parks).

Poverty: There’s no strong welfare system for marginalized populations which brings food insecurity and extreme poor housing conditions. Most Latin American countries don’t provide any type of unemployment benefits to its citizens.

Street violence: Upper social classes may hire private security systems, but people in marginalized neighborhoods are exposed to drug-dealing and robbery gangs who recruit minors, and lack of police protection against domestic violence.

Tips to handling students with traumatic responses

People who have gone through traumatic events are oftentimes highly resilient people. They’ll be able to perform in your classroom equally than their peers. Usually they don’t need or expect especial treatment in the classroom. Most times you don’t know how many students have gone through traumatic events, even Anglo-American students. If you are aware that a student went through a traumatic event, just provide the same type of treatment you provide to any other student in the classroom. However, I add here few tips that may be helpful:

• Consistent routines will provide a sense of safety to someone who has been through a traumatic situation.
• Keeping your classroom organized and clean will provide students a sense of safety. Avoid overcrowding your classroom with too many school supplies, posters, or decoration.
• Keep an attitude of open conversation to any subject matter you or the student need to discuss in class.
• Provide tools for students to process triggers in a healthy manner. E.g. let students hold a cushion to squeeze if they seem overactive, disengaged, or aggressive.
• Let students choose coping mechanisms to triggers as long as they are not disruptive to the classroom.
• Explicit rules are very useful to students with trauma issues. Children who went through trauma often have self-regulation issues or difficulty handling either positive or negative emotions. Remind students of your rules, and consistently enforce them for all students equally.
• If a student discloses a traumatic event to you, keep an open and natural conversation style to discuss it. Decide later what you will do with that information.
• You need to take care of yourself. You may need to attend counseling yourself if you feel depressed, anxious, overwhelmed or disturbed by stories of trauma coming from students and families. This may also trigger traumatic responses from your own life story as well.
• Create activities with pre-structured socialization strategies for all students interact with their peers. Peers are the most valuable source of support network for a vulnerable student.
• Help isolated students interact with their peers, but respect their socialization styles. Keep trying it consistently without pushing.
• Kids with trauma may exhibit odd behaviors that others may use for bullying. Respond to any sign of bullying consistently on a timely manner.
• Google information about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You are a qualified, educated professional who can handle that type of information and apply it in a well-informed manner.
• Report any sign of present-day child abuse or neglect to the proper authorities.

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