Time to Go Home

Sometimes the facts speak for themselves. Sometimes they don’t. This time they do.

The facts are these: a high percentage—that would be 23%-- of illegal Mexican immigrants suffers from mental health disorders.

Daniel Steingold reports on the Studyfinds site:

Undocumented Mexican immigrants living near the California-Mexico border experience increased rates of clinical depression and anxiety, a new study finds.

Researchers at Rice University examined the incidence of mental illnesses and substance abuse among 250 individuals within this stressed population, finding that 23 percent met the DSM’s criteria for having a mental disorder.

 Fourteen percent of the study’s participants were found to have major depressive disorder (MDD), while eight and seven percent had panic or generalized anxiety disorders, respectively.

Some were determined to have suffered from multiple conditions concurrently.

“The estimates obtained in this study for depression and anxiety disorders were considerably higher in this population when compared with estimates for the general U.S. population,” says lead author Luz Garcini in a university news release.

As it happens, the researchers point out, these illegal immigrants are unlikely to be engaged in drug abuse. The study does not point out how many addictive drugs they and their campadres bring into American through the porous Southern border.

What are the causes of these mental health problems? The research identifies them:

The researchers believe that a number of stressors, including stigmatization, language barriers, fear of deportation, family separation, and discrimination, are culprits for the deteriorated mental health of many migrants.

Compounding matters, undocumented individuals rarely have access to adequate mental health services, the researchers say.

“Additional research and funding are needed to document the devastating effects of the current socio-political context on the mental health of immigrants living in the U.S. without documentation, which is needed to inform advocacy, policy and intervention efforts,” Garcini concludes.

Naturally, the study blames it all on the Trump administration. And it wants these illegal immigrants to have access to better mental health care. It assumes, incorrectly, that mental health care is a panacea for social dislocation. It does not explain why American taxpayers should foot the bill for life choices made by people who are here illegally.

The obvious point is so obvious that we are all thinking it. We know exactly how these illegal immigrants can solve all of their mental health problems, without costing the American taxpayer a dime and without taxing the empathy quotient of today’s mental health professionals.

They could go home!