The Mental Health Toll of Deportation and Displacement
In my work as a therapist and as a first-generation Mexican-American, I’ve seen how the threat or experience of deportation doesn’t just disrupt lives, it reshapes identities, fractures families, and leaves long-lasting imprints on mental health.
Whether someone has directly experienced deportation, fears it daily, or has witnessed it in their community, the psychological weight is real. Even when someone is not the one at risk, the proximity to trauma, through family members, friends, or cultural memory, can be just as heavy.
Displacement Wounds the Nervous System
For individuals and families facing deportation or forced displacement, safety becomes uncertain. The body stays on high alert leding to chronic stress, hypervigilance, sleep disruption, anxiety, and symptoms of trauma. For children, this can impact development and attachment, especially when caregivers are detained or separated.
Even those with citizenship can experience “vicarious displacement,” a sense that safety is conditional or temporary. For many first- and second-generation individuals, displacement is a part of their family story. It's encoded in the nervous system and passed down through generational trauma.
Community Belonging Becomes Fragile
Displacement isn’t just about geography. It’s also about belonging. When people are uprooted or live under constant threat of removal, it becomes harder to build trust, stability, and connection to community. This disconnection can fuel isolation, depression, and hopelessness.
The trauma of deportation is often silent. Families grieve in private. Communities don’t always have safe spaces to process what’s happening. And in the absence of that space, shame and survival mode take over.
Survivor’s Guilt and the First-Gen Experience
As a therapist who works with first-gen individuals, I often witness the guilt that comes from “being safe” when others are not. Guilt is a common response for having access to therapy, education, or stability while their loved ones live in fear. This is a form of survivor’s guilt that’s rarely talked about but deeply felt.
For many, these complex feelings exist alongside a fierce sense of responsibility to advocate, to protect, to succeed for the family. But carrying that weight without support can become overwhelming.
Psychological & Emotional Symptoms
Chronic anxiety
Constant fear of ICE raids, family separation, or status-related discrimination can keep individuals in a state of hypervigilance.Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms (PTSD)
Especially common in those who experienced detainment, family separation, or witnessed raids. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares, and avoidance of reminders.Depression
Feelings of helplessness, sadness, or hopelessness—especially after losing home, family, or livelihood.Survivor’s guilt
Especially common in U.S.-born or DACA individuals who remain in the U.S. while loved ones are deported.Grief and ambiguous loss
Deportation creates a kind of unresolved grief, especially when individuals are cut off from their families or homeland with no closure.Emotional numbness or shutdown
A coping mechanism in high-stress or traumatic environments.Shame or stigma
Internalized blame for one's or a family member’s status, especially in children or mixed-status families.
In Children & Adolescents
Developmental regressions (e.g., bedwetting, separation anxiety)
Academic struggles or school avoidance
Behavioral changes such as irritability or acting out
Sleep disturbances and increased somatic complaints (headaches, stomachaches)
Trust issues or fear of authority figures (teachers, police)
Somatic & Nervous System Symptoms
Sleep problems (difficulty falling or staying asleep, nightmares)
Digestive issues (IBS, stomachaches, appetite changes)
Fatigue or exhaustion
Headaches, muscle tension
Hypervigilance or jumpiness (startle response)
Cultural & Identity-Based Impacts
Disconnection from community due to shame or safety concerns
Identity confusion or fragmentation especially in children navigating mixed-status families
Loss of belonging in both home and host countries
Silencing of story—many feel they cannot share their experience openly for fear of judgment or re-traumatization.
Healing Doesn’t Have to Be the Goal Right Now
In trauma-informed therapy, we talk about the importance of nervous system regulation. And sometimes, just getting through the day is enough. If your nervous system feels maxed out, if the world feels unsafe, then offering yourself tiny moments of pause, is maintenance. A nervous system without a pause is like driving a car, pressing the gas, full speed, without a pause. The body will crash out or run out of gas too!
Do everything with intention: Stretch with intention, drinking water with intention, soften your gaze with intention. Putting your feet flat on the ground and feeling the earth support you. These are not small things. These are acts of care that help your body survive.
Surviving is sacred work.
You Are Not Alone
If you or your family have experienced deportation or displacement, know that your grief is valid. Your fear is not imagined.
Mental health care is part of rebuilding safety in a world that often denies it.
And if all you can do today is feel the wind on your face, hydrate, or survive quietly, you’re doing enough.
Legal & Know‑Your‑Rights Resources
National Immigration Law Center (NILC)
Offers fact sheets, multilingual “Know Your Rights” toolkits on detention, healthcare access, public-charge, and more.
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA)
Offers legal services, worker rights education, and community organizing—especially strong in Southern California.
El Rescate (Los Angeles)
Provides free legal and social services for Latine refugees and hosts weekly know-your-rights “charlas.”
Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC)
Community toolkits and step-by-step preparedness guides for families, parolees, DACA recipients, and those facing expedited removal.
De Aquí y De Allá,
Elsa Matsumoto, LCSW, PMH-C
