The issue of immigration transcends many disciplines and many countries across the globe. It happens either because the immigrants decide to leave their home countries due to economic issues, political instability, natural disasters, and family reunification, among others. In other cases, the immigrants seek better employment opportunities, chances to further their education, higher wages, and enhance their living standards. Therefore immigration could be employment-based, family-based, or humanitarian-based. If fairly and well-managed, immigration can lead to positive economic and social changes to the host nation. However, immigration has several effects on the immigrants who could be economic, social, physical, and psychological. The paper focuses on the psychological effects of immigration policies on immigrants to discuss the methods and the planned analysis of the research proposal on the psychological effects of immigration policies. Immigrants and their children experience challenges of adjusting to new cultures and new physical environments. They have to be conversant with different legal requirements in their host countries due to policy and often find difficulty getting well integrated into American society.
Materials
The materials to be used in the research include:
CDI-2 scale
The Trauma History Screen (THS)
Likert Scale
Research Design and Participants
An exploratory, mixed-method design will integrate the qualitative descriptions of emotional distress or suffering with the quantitative measure of any depressive symptoms among the immigrants in the United States. In addition, the number of immigrants coming to the country, leavers, and the legally prosecuted due to policy changes will be collected. All the data collection, including qualitative interviews and quantitative measures, will be done in either English or Spanish and will depend on what the participants prefer.
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The participants in the study will be asked to complete a series of measures to check their mental health and indexing of immigrant children's depressive symptoms. A CDI-2 scale will be used to comprehensively assess the practical and functional immigrant issues in children and adolescents between ages 7 to 17. The participants will also be asked about their levels of symptomatology using a 3 point scale or absence of the symptom (0), mild or probable symptom (1), and definite symptom (2) (Patler & Pirtle, 2018). The scores from the CDI-2 scale will be used to indicate depressive symptoms and, together with the symptomatology scores used to create standardized T-scores such as in showing the levels of suicidal ideation due to unfavorable immigrant policies.
Once the quantitative measures are done, the qualitative interviews will be administered to elicit immigrant narratives on how things have changed with changes in the policies. The children will respond to changes in their lifestyles without parents. Accounts of detailed experiences of the immigrants will show the experiences of these people in cases of forceful deportation or parental enforcement. Bilingual researchers who are fully qualified for qualitative research will conduct the process to help establish rapport and a sense of empowerment. As a result, it will reduce bias and facilitate a more profound exploration of the issue (Gerber et al., 2018). The impacts of policy changes will mainly be qualitatively checked using participants' responses and observations on the perceptions, emotions, thoughts, reflections, feelings, and interpretations, which will be handy in determining the psychosocial impacts of policy changes. The interviews will be analyzed to enhance validity with continuous monitoring to enhance data quality.
Procedures
The study participants will be questioned on their places of birth, the duration of residence within the United States since they emigrated from their previous or native or home countries, their places f former residence, and places of residence at particular fixed dates. The data will then be checked against policy changes on immigration and determine if the participants were likely affected by the changes. The social and spatial mobility of the immigrant participants will also be recorded to determine the geographic areas of residence and occupations they have taken up and if policy changes could have impacted that (Queirós et al., 2017). Moreover, the participants will respond to marriage questions and their identity to determine their cycle in social mobility and ethnic or racial identification. The participants, both adults, and teenagers will also respond to questions on their education levels and achievements to determine their assimilation rates into the United States. Finally, their languages, citizenships, perceptions of crime, and participation in crime will also be questioned to determine their experiences since policy changes and how they have been coping with the changes. Thus, the procedure will aim to determine four main aspects of the immigration life cycle: the change of political boundaries, the integration of immigrants, immigrant status, and economic implications.
The procedure will also involve asking the participants questions to determine their trauma experiences during the immigration process and how the policy changes have affected such experiences. Information collected will be qualitative if the policy changes have instilled fear in them and the levels of fear using a Likert scale. The scale works using a 5 point measure to reflect the intensity or strength of an attitude; The Likert scale assumes attitudes can be measured, and the respondents are asked on five options that include neutral agree, disagree, highly agree, and highly disagree on each of the questions. Once the participants respond to the Likert scale questions, the total number of responses is calculated for sentiment levels. After that, the number is divided by the total number of participants (see appendix 3). The participants will also be taken through indicators of depression such as social isolation, agitation, guilt, hopelessness, apathy, and anxiety, among others. Their response will be specific to before they came into the United States while crossing over the border, their initial stay in the country as immigrants, the changes when the policy changed, and the current status. The participants will also respond to their experiences due to exposure to the new physical environment and unfamiliar cultural experiences (Hatzenbuehler et al., 2017). The procedure will also check and analyze mental health issues, discrimination, isolation, and substance abuse among the immigrants. However, the primary focus will be on policy changes and how they affected the health and well-being of immigrants. For example, such impacts on policies leading to health risks and issues such as strokes and diabetes.
The final part will check the degree of traumatic experiences of the immigrants, especially throughout the immigration lifecycle, and consideration the changes in policies. First, the participants in the research will respond to their past experiences in their home country to violence, rape, losing family members, and any other traumatic encounters. After that, they will be asked about their experiences in the United States since they acquired their immigrant statuses and how they cope with the traumas. Next, the policy changes will be checked and how they have affected either the healing or the worsening of these immigrants from these traumas. The refugees and asylum-seeking participants will be asked about their experiences of trauma due to policy changes, for instance, if their lives changed significantly when specific laws or policies on immigration were changed. Finally, the issues of trauma resulting from language barriers, discrimination, limited schooling, exclusion, and immigrant-specific experiences will be considered to gain an accurate qualitative look at the issues of the immigrants.
The statistical procedures will also check any trend of deterioration in the mental health of the immigrants due to the unfavorable policies applied to them. The health disparities will show the difference between the impacts of the immigration policies within set time schedules or different times. The foreign population and the evolution, including their access to care and health services, will also reflect the impact of such policies and cover the scant evidence from existing literature (Cobb et al.2020). The researchers will investigate the changes in trends, patterns, and relationships in the immigrants on their immigration status, citizenship, changes, employment education using the available quantitative data and qualitative data from the interview responses. Analyses of variance will be used in the statistical analyses of data by comparing the data and determining its relevance using a preset standard of the gathered data.
Using a Trauma-informed mental health assessment, the researchers will conduct clinical interviews, behavioral observations, and standard measures in gaining a deeper understanding of the timing, nature, and severity of the immigrants' trauma. The statistical procedure of this measure will be the Trauma History Screen (THS) (Carminati, 2018) see appendix 2. The THS, a 14-item self-report measure, will allow the immigrant participants to respond to inquiries close to 13 event types and others. For every event, the participants will indicate if it occurs and the number of times. In addition, life events checklist and life stressor checklists will also be used to determine the trauma changes and impacts due to policy changes.
References
Queirós, A., Faria, D., & Almeida, F. (2017). Strengths and limitations of qualitative and quantitative research methods. European Journal of Education Studies .
Carminati, L. (2018). Generalizability in qualitative research: A tale of two traditions. Qualitative health research , 28 (13), 2094-2101. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1049732318788379
Gerber, N., Tucker, M., & Hofer, S. (2018). A proposed conceptual basis for mode 2 business and management research and development projects based on design science research principles. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-4971
Patler, C., & Pirtle, W. L. (2018). From undocumented to lawfully present: Do changes to legal status impact psychological wellbeing among latino immigrant young adults? Social Science & Medicine , 199 , 39-48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.03.009
Hatzenbuehler, M. L., Prins, S. J., Flake, M., Philbin, M., Frazer, M. S., Hagen, D., & Hirsch, J. (2017). Immigration policies and mental health morbidity among Latinos: A state-level analysis. Social science & medicine , 174 , 169-178. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.11.040
Cobb, C. L., Branscombe, N. R., Meca, A., Schwartz, S. J., Xie, D., Zea, M. C., ... & Martinez Jr, C. R. (2019). Toward a positive psychology of immigrants. Perspectives on Psychological Science , 14 (4), 619-632. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1745691619825848
