José moved his family from Mexico to the United States when his son was a toddler, but now he worries about the future of his 21-year-old-son. José’s son was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder last year and has faced barriers to getting affordable treatment, in part because he doesn’t have legal status. His untreated conditions have led to scrapes with the law. According to the article, People with mental illness make up only a small percentage of violent offenders — they are actually more likely, compared with the general population, to be victims of violent crime. But the stakes are extremely high when people without legal status enter the criminal justice system: They risk getting deported to a country where they may not speak the language, or where it’s even more difficult to obtain quality mental health care. On top of that, immigrants facing deportation in most states don’t generally have a right to public counsel during the removal proceedings and have to represent themselves. An immigrant with a mental disability could be particularly vulnerable without the help of a lawyer.

I chose this article because it shows the intersection between social issues, like immigration, and medical issues, like health care and mental illness. In class, we discussed structural discrimination, and how major social structures can hurt certain groups more than others, and this case is definitely one of those. The immigration structure hurts immigrants that have disabilities and illnesses, and the health care system hurts immigrants more than natural citizens. These intersections highlight our lectures, and make for a situation that we need to understand more.

https://khn.org/news/undocumented-young-immigrants-mental-illness-deportation-risk/

#geog203 #psycho #social