{"id":190556,"date":"2025-06-17T02:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T02:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/190556\/"},"modified":"2025-06-17T02:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T02:42:09","slug":"a-psychologist-unpacks-how-ice-raids-traumatize-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/190556\/","title":{"rendered":"A psychologist unpacks how ICE raids traumatize communities"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a> <\/p>\n

Published<\/p>\n

2025-06-16 11:48<\/p>\n

11:48<\/p>\n

June 16, 2025<\/p>\n

am<\/p>\n

\u201cToo much, too soon, too fast\u201d \u2014 psychologists warn that this is a recipe for trauma. And over the past six months, no city nationwide has been battered in such a way like Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

The year began, as Joan Didion once wrote, with \u201cthe city on fire, just as we had always known it would be.\u201d Before Angelenos could recover from the hurricane-strength winds that blanketed L.A. in flames, killing more than two dozen people and destroying some 15,000 structures, new fears surfaced \u2014 whispers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stalking parking lots, circling schools and detaining immigrants across L.A. County.<\/p>\n

First came the rumors: ICE is at the Target in Alhambra. They\u2019re parked near a high school in South L.A. Then came the confirmations \u2014 federal agents on church grounds, mass raids at Home Depot locations, protests met with militarized force. The National Guard\u2019s presence downtown, in a city already prone to what Didion called \u201capocalyptic notions,\u201d made it feel like Los Angeles was under siege.<\/p>\n

But for immigrant communities, the siege isn\u2019t just a feeling \u2014 it\u2019s reality. Families have grappled with disappearances, deportations and the constant fear of being hunted. When Sen. Alex Padilla \u2014 a Democrat and the son of Mexican immigrants, was tackled during a Department of Homeland Security briefing Thursday \u2014 they reflexively flinched.<\/p>\n

Psychologist Lisette Sanchez<\/a> understands this trauma intimately. Raised by working-class immigrants in Southern California, she\u2019s spent this tumultuous year treating an increasingly anxious, bicultural clientele from her Long Beach practice. She helps first-generation Americans and others who\u2019ve been told, both overtly and covertly, they don\u2019t belong \u2014 and experience the exhaustion, silencing and self-doubt that accompanies such alienation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 19th spoke with Sanchez about pressing forward in an unforgiving year, healing intergenerational trauma and how immigrant communities can weather a reactionary political climate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"HeadshotPsychologist Lisette Sanchez
\n (Courtesy of Dr. Lisette Brand)<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n

Nadra Nittle: Given the recent immigration raids across Greater Los Angeles and the Trump administration\u2019s militarized response to them, Southern California has been on edge. What are immigrant communities, in particular, experiencing right now?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lisette Sanchez: The recent ICE activity in Los Angeles has left many in our immigrant communities feeling a renewed sense of fear, grief and hypervigilance. This impacts people beyond those directly targeted. These raids often reactivate intergenerational trauma for families who have experienced displacement or detention in the past.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In my work, I\u2019m seeing how this is manifesting: People are struggling with sleep, experiencing heightened stress and adjusting their day-to-day routines out of fear. Some are avoiding spaces they used to feel safe in or choosing not to access services they\u2019re entitled to. This kind of fear is profoundly disruptive, and it\u2019s heartbreaking.<\/p>\n

What can people, both in and outside immigrant communities, do to help?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are many ways we can push back against the message that our pain should be hidden. Resilience is powerful, but we don\u2019t have to be resilient alone. I encourage folks to seek support, share their stories when they feel ready, protest, call their representatives and have those tough conversations with loved ones.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For those who are not directly impacted but have the capacity, I encourage you to look for ways to support your community. I\u2019ve heard from people who no longer feel safe shopping at their regular grocery stores or even being in predominantly Latinx neighborhoods, out of fear that those areas may be targeted. This is where collective care matters most.<\/p>\n

School graduations are taking place right now, but the <\/strong>recent raids have sparked such fear<\/strong><\/a> that some immigrant families feel too vulnerable to celebrate this milestone in their children\u2019s lives. Can you describe what young people might be going through emotionally at this time?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oftentimes, children of immigrants, they\u2019re already placed in a parentified role. Parentification refers to when that child is placed in the role of an adult that\u2019s beyond their developmental level. There\u2019s instrumental parentification \u2014 like interpreting for parents who don\u2019t speak English. Instrumental parentification is usually the one that people look back on and say, \u201cOh, I learned all these skills that helped me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, there\u2019s emotional parentification \u2014 you feel that you are responsible for the emotions of the adults in your life, like you need to take certain actions to make sure that they feel safe, that they feel secure, which is typically the role of a parent. Emotional parentification is what can cause long-term mental health consequences.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just unfortunate because there are a lot of really big decisions that are being talked about with children, and they don\u2019t have the full capacity to understand exactly what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n

You say that, for undocumented immigrants, obtaining \u201cpapers\u201d is about more than legal status, it\u2019s about a sense of safety. Can you elaborate?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

For example, my mom came to the United States from El Salvador. My mom is a citizen now, but she was not when she came. My mom was held in a detention center her first time attempting to cross. Her life was threatened in El Salvador. My grandfather had been murdered, and my grandmother was just trying to bring them to safety, and they brought them here to the United States, and my mom now finds that a sense of safety is hard to fully experience because of the psychological safety that was removed when she was a kid. Even people who are citizens, just based on our ethnic identity, are working to establish a sense of safety. I\u2019ve been receiving messages from folks who are like, \u201cThis is the first time I\u2019ve been afraid about the fact that I am Latina.\u201d They are not even undocumented, just people with a marginalized identity. I\u2019ve noticed increased fear there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes, I\u2019ve also heard about U.S. citizens feeling like they need to carry around a passport or a birth certificate in case they get stopped. In some cases, U.S. citizens have been detained, so there is this fear that citizenship is not protective. Do you agree?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a strong fear that being a citizen may not protect you. Mental health wise, that leads to chronic anxiety. That can impact you in so many different ways. It\u2019s not just the racing thoughts and increased heart rate. It also can impact an individual\u2019s sleep, and that can lead to other chronic health issues. In times of uncertainty, we can try to manage by taking control of what we feel we do have control over.<\/p>\n

What toll do you think this political climate is having on people in mixed-status households, in which some family members are citizens and others aren\u2019t?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s different kinds of fears that each member of the family would have. The family members who are citizens might say, \u201cI was born here, but I still fear for my community.\u201d In terms of the mental health impacts, I think it\u2019s impacting the community as a whole. You might just see people being a bit more on edge. They might also be more protective. The family members born here might feel additional pressure as the one with the citizenship privilege. They might say, \u201cOh, I\u2019ll go get the groceries. I\u2019ll go do this.\u201d They might feel a stronger sense of responsibility towards taking things on. But I think that the mental health impacts are still pretty strong for each member of a mixed-status family. I don\u2019t know that one person is worse off than the other.<\/p>\n

Polls in early June found that most Americans approve of President Donald Trump\u2019s handling of\u00a0 immigration, though his <\/strong>approval rating on the issue has fallen since the unrest in L.A.<\/strong><\/a> began. Does the fact that many people support mass deportations of all undocumented immigrants suggest a lack of empathy, and what can be done about it, if so?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I\u2019m working with anyone on an individual level, I let them know that you have to take care of your needs first before you can worry about someone else\u2019s. I think the role of helping other people develop more empathy is placed on people with more capacity for that. So if you have any kind of privilege, enter spaces where typically people wouldn\u2019t access stories about immigrants and bring those experiences up. I don\u2019t think that it\u2019s the role of the person whose current nervous system is incredibly activated to help others develop empathy for them. I think they have to focus on sort of navigating the emotional distress they\u2019re experiencing or their immediate family or community is experiencing. The responsibility falls on others to be allies and advocates and to amplify immigrant stories.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve mentioned intergenerational trauma among immigrant families. How does it get passed down?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a bunch of different ways that it passes on to individuals, and one way is the behaviors that they see. So my mom has always been hypervigilant about our sense of safety. Since I was a little kid, I was given pepper spray to carry with me at all times, even when I would take the trash out. My mom needed to make sure that I understood how to get out of the trunk of a car. She never put me in one but would explain it to me. When we would travel and get an Airbnb somewhere, my mom would put chairs up to block the door. She\u2019s done this ever since I was a kid. So, now, whenever I\u2019m home by myself, I double block my door and I even have a door stopper. I have a hard time falling asleep if I don\u2019t have the door stopper if I\u2019m home alone. If someone else is with me, I\u2019m more at ease. But that\u2019s just one example of a behavior that got passed down in my family.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve done research on how trauma impacts your genetics. They found, for example, that firstborn daughters inherit some of the stress that the mother<\/a> is experiencing while they are pregnant and can make it so that the daughter hits puberty much more quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for my dad, we visit Mexico at least once a year, but every time we come back into the United States and go through customs, my parents, especially my dad, get very physically uncomfortable. He gets really nervous and flustered, and I\u2019ve witnessed that ever since I was a kid. So, now, anytime I go through customs, I get anxious. I tell myself, \u201cI\u2019m good, I\u2019m coming home. Why am I so stressed?\u201d But then I remember witnessing my dad start to sweat, start to jumble up his words and start to get really tense.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What can parents do to avoid inadvertently passing on their trauma to children?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If a parent is reading this, they should consider having more open conversations with their kids around what is actually expected of them because the kids are inundated with information. They\u2019re going to want to help their parents. So having clarity in those roles is really helpful. It removes the internal pressure that children may place on themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published 2025-06-16 11:48 11:48 June 16, 2025 am \u201cToo much, too soon, too fast\u201d \u2014 psychologists warn that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4317],"tags":[105,218,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-190556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114696404635644001","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}