President Trump’s Recent Immigration Actions Could Affect Immigrant Families’ Health

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President Trump has made a slew of immigration policy changes focused on restricting entry at the border and increasing interior enforcement efforts to support mass deportation. These include rescinding protections against enforcement action in previously protected areas such as health care facilities and schools. While many of these actions focus on the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., they will have ripple effects among the much larger number of people in immigrant families, including millions of U.S.-born citizen children. As of 2023, 19 million, or one in four, children in the U.S. had an immigrant parent, including one in ten (12%) who are citizen children with a noncitizen parent.

Previous KFF research provides a window into the likely health-related impacts of these actions. During the first Trump administration, restrictive immigration policies and increased enforcement activity led to increased fears among immigrant families across immigration statuses that had negative effects on health and well-being, employment, and daily life. Parents and pediatricians reported broad impacts of increased fears among children, including behavioral changes, such as problems sleeping and eating; psychosomatic symptoms, such as headaches and stomachaches; mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety; and decreased performance in school. Pediatricians expressed concerns about long-term health consequences for children, including damaging effects of toxic stress on physical and mental health over the lifespan, negative effects on growth and development, and compounding social and environmental challenges that negatively impact health. Increased fears also led to growing reluctance among families about lawfully present immigrants, including citizen children, participating in programs they are eligible for and seeking services, including health coverage and care. KFF interviews with individuals who had a family member detained or deported during the first Trump administration found that, beyond the mental health impacts of being separated from a family member, they experienced sudden loss of income leading to difficulty affording food, rent, and utilities; disruptions to children’s routines and education; and, in some cases, loss of health coverage.

As these new policies unfold, communities and health care providers will face new challenges to helping families feel safe accessing health care for themselves and their children and establishing protocols to respond to potential visits from Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Mass deportations also would more broadly impact the nation’s communities, economy, and workforce given the role immigrants play, particularly in certain industries, including health care and the billions of dollars immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, pay in federal, state, and local taxes.