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21 December 2025

Psychosocial Stressors of Unauthorized and Authorized Latine Immigrants: Psychological Well-Being

and
1
School of Education & Counseling Psychology, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053, USA
2
Department Counseling Psychology, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Societies2026, 16(1), 2;https://doi.org/10.3390/soc16010002
This article belongs to the Section The Social Nature of Health and Well-Being
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Abstract

Latine immigrants may experience a heightened degree of stress related to their immigration status. This is particularly true for immigrants who are in the country unauthorized. Individuals who are unauthorized may experience unique psychosocial stress compared to authorized individuals. This cross-sectional study examined differences in psychosocial stressors and four measures of well-being by immigration status. Authorized and unauthorized immigrants were surveyed to assess differences in psychosocial stressors and the impact of authorization status on well-being. Based on the findings, unauthorized Latine immigrants experienced more psychosocial stressors compared to authorized immigrants with regard to migration, fear of discovery, employment concerns, legal issues, and limited access to services. No differences were found in other measures of well-being. Unauthorized immigrants experienced more psychosocial stressors compared to their authorized counterparts; however, this did not have implications for their overall mental health. Findings suggest the resilience and strength of the Latine immigrant population.

1. Introduction

The Latine population is the largest ethnic group in the United States (U.S.), and constitutes approximately 19% of the population, or 65.2 million people [1]. Of the 51.9 million immigrants in the U.S., Latine individuals account for over half of the immigrant population, at 52% or 26.7 million people [2]. Within the Latine immigrant population, approximately 35% have unauthorized immigration status [3]. This is a significant percentage of people who likely experience issues because of their immigration status. Of the 11 million unauthorized individuals in the U.S., people of Mexican descent make up the largest group, at 4 million or 37%, followed by individuals from the Northern Triangle of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, at 18% or 2.1 million [4]. The remainder of unauthorized immigrants represent people from a host of different countries, with a notable surge of individuals from India [4]. However, it is evident that Latine individuals disproportionately have to deal with issues and stressors related to immigration status compared to other groups. The term Latine will be used in this paper as trans Latine activists have endorsed this term above other gender-neutral terms because of its promotion of Spanish-language fluency and ability to reference a large group of Latine individuals [5]. It is unknown whether all the participants in the study used this term.
Latine immigrants may experience a variety of psychosocial stressors as they transition into the U.S. such as their migration experience, low socioeconomic status, acculturative stress, and discrimination [6,7,8,9]. It is likely these psychosocial stressors and the stress associated with them may be exacerbated for unauthorized versus authorized immigrants, given their vulnerable status. In fact, fear of deportation is one of the most consistent and pervasive fears among unauthorized Latine immigrants [6,10,11,12,13]. Approximately 39% of Latine immigrants have reported worrying about deportation, with this rising to 79% for unauthorized individuals [14]. One would surmise that this would have a negative impact on the daily lives and mental health of immigrants, specifically unauthorized immigrants. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of research regarding differences in stressors of authorized and unauthorized Latine immigrants and the impact of this status on their well-being.
Throughout the years, changes in immigration policy may have contributed to a heightened sense of stress for both authorized and unauthorized Latine immigrants [15,16]. A brief review of immigration policy is given to fully understand how immigration policy can affect the daily lives of Latine individuals in the U.S. We use Bronfrenbrenner’s ecological model to understand how individuals are influenced by the social systems of society [17,18]. Bronfrenbrenner [17] proposed that individuals are situated at the center of four layers of concentric circles that represent the different social systems of our society and that influence human development: the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. This model has also been used to help explain how these layers of the social system influence mental health [19]. The microsystem, which is in close proximity to the individual, constitutes parents, kin, or nonrelated extended kin. The mesosystem is the relationship between the microsystems such as parents and a child’s teacher, or an individual’s school and church. The exosystem includes connections with larger social organizations. For example, an individual’s community and their workplace, or their parent’s workplace. The macrosystem is the outermost layer and refers to values, traditions, culture, and laws [18]. Given the model, it would stand to reason that the immigration policy changes that have taken place over the last three decades have significantly impacted all layers of context, especially immigrants at the individual level. Moreover, unauthorized Latine immigrants have disproportionately experienced stressors because of their immigration status.
A brief overview of immigration policy changes is offered to help understand the impact on their daily lives. Significant changes to immigration policy began in the mid-1990s [20]. Prior to 1996, immigration enforcement had primarily focused on unauthorized immigrants [20]. However, with the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) in 1996, the U.S.A. Patriot Act in 2001, and changes by subsequent presidential administrations, the expansion of the categories of deportation increased the number of unauthorized as well as authorized immigrants who were eligible for deportation [7,20,21]. The effects of these policy changes produced a dramatic increase in deportation from 40,000 in 1996 to 358,000 in 2008 [20]. The rate of deportations remained consistently high throughout President Obama’s administration and President Trump’s first administration, disproportionately affecting Latine immigrants [22]. This mass deportation had deleterious effects on many Latine individuals, with many reporting anxiety, depression, sadness, and fear [23,24]. The fear of discovery also likely increased for many in the Latine community, specifically for unauthorized immigrants, although deportation was likely traumatic for the whole community, as family and friends were left behind or witnessed detainment irrespective of immigration status [23,25]. However, more research is needed to discern if differences exist regarding the fear of discovery based on immigration status.
In addition to the fear of discovery, unauthorized and to some extent authorized Latine individuals may experience psychosocial stressors due to their immigrant noncitizen status. A comprehensive review of the theoretical literature regarding the stressors of unauthorized Latine immigrants identified various psychosocial stressors related to documentation status [6,26,27]. The stressors included intrafamilial conflict, the fear of discovery, employment status, legal problems, access to services, and the socio-political climate endorsed through the media. Families with children may experience intrafamilial conflict resulting from familial separation and subsequent reunification [19]. The forced separation of families either by deportation or at the border has a negative psychological impact for both parents and children [28,29,30]. When reunification does occur, children may have a hard time accepting their parents in a parental role, and they may present with severe symptoms related to the trauma and the severed attachment they experienced upon the initial separation, making it hard to parent [19,31,32]. Latine individuals may also experience exploitative work conditions, especially if they are unauthorized [33,34]. Latine workers have reported chronic stress related to undignified treatment, wage theft, harsh work conditions, and a lack of steady work. Often workers have little or no recourse.
A lack of healthcare is another stressor for many in the Latine population and has been for the past few decades [35,36]. The disparities in healthcare often occur because of a lack of access to insurance due to an individual’s occupation and/or their immigration status [37,38,39]. This may be a significant stressor for Latine individuals as they may not be able to access vital medical services for themselves or their children. Legal issues may also increase stress for unauthorized Latine individuals because of their immigration status; though, given the current climate, this may extend to authorized noncitizens [27,40,41]. Finally, the media coverage of unauthorized and Latine individuals, in general, may influence societal sentiment and the subsequent treatment of people in the Latine population [42,43]. In what is known as the “Trump effect,” studies have reported on the link between inflammatory rhetoric about the Latine population and the heightened experience of racism in the public sphere toward Latine individuals [44,45]. This maltreatment resulting from the influence of media on public sentiment may be a significant stressor for many Latine immigrants.
The body of research on Latine immigrants has made a significant contribution to our understanding of immigrant stressors and the impact on their mental health [46,47,48,49,50,51]. However, most have studied Latine immigrants as a singular group based on unauthorized status, combined immigration status, or immigration status as unknown [23,25,52]. From previous studies and following Bronfrenbrenner’s model, it is likely that both authorized and unauthorized immigrants’ well-being within the Latine community have been impacted. However, few studies have differentiated between authorized and unauthorized Latine immigrants with regard to mental health and the experience of psychosocial stressors [14,46,47].
With regard to the mental health of unauthorized Latine individuals, Pérez and Fortuna [47] found that unauthorized Latine immigrants were more likely to have a diagnosis of anxiety, adjustment, alcohol abuse, and other psychological problems compared to authorized and U.S.-born Latine individuals. Arbona et al. [46] found that unauthorized Latine immigrants reported more acculturative stress due to familial separation and language difficulties than authorized immigrants. Previous articles have taken great strides in expanding the unauthorized immigrant literature, with more recent research focusing on either reviews and the applications of the literature, or on college student populations [7,53,54,55]. However, more research is needed to explore if differences exist between authorized and unauthorized Latine immigrants with regard to psychosocial stressors such as migration experience, intrafamilial conflict, the fear of discovery, employment status, legal problems, access to services, and media sentiment, and the impact on their psychological well-being. This study contributes to the literature by addressing these on-going limitations.
Unauthorized Latine immigrants are an understudied and difficult-to-reach research population [56,57,58]. However, understanding the differences in psychosocial stressors and mental health outcomes is necessary in order to provide appropriate services and develop relevant treatment interventions. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to examine whether unauthorized Latine immigrants and authorized Latine immigrants expressed different experiences related to psychosocial stressors and whether psychological well-being differed as a result of immigration status. We hypothesized that unauthorized Latine immigrants would experience greater psychosocial stressors than authorized immigrants. We also hypothesized that psychological well-being would differ between authorized and unauthorized immigrants, with unauthorized immigrants reporting more depression, anxiety, and stress than authorized immigrants.

2. Methods

2.1. Participants

The participants comprised 176 Latine immigrants from various Latin American countries living in Northern California. Latine participants of Mexican descent were disproportionately represented in this region. The age range for the participants was 18–87, with a mean of 38.62. In total, 73 participants identified as authorized immigrants, and 103 indicated that they were unauthorized immigrants. Four did not provide their documentation status or did not complete the survey. Other demographic information can be seen in Table 1.
Table 1. Participants’ demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.

2.2. Instruments

Latine Psychosocial Stressors Scale. The Latine Psychosocial Stressors Scale (LPSS) for unauthorized immigrants was developed by the primary author for use in this study because no such scale existed. The instrument consisted of 51 items with seven subscales, based on variables identified in the literature as stressors for unauthorized Latine immigrants [6,27]. Items were answered on a seven-point Likert-type scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). The subscales included stress due to migration, intrafamilial conflict, the fear of discovery, employment status, legal problems, access to services, and media sentiment. The stress due to the migration subscale addresses issues of safety and danger during migration. Intrafamilial conflict assesses the conflicts resulting from separation and adaptation. The fear of discovery relates to the stress of deportation and the avoidance behavior related to documentation status. The employment status subscale addresses stress due to instability of employment, wages, and treatment by employers. The legal problems subscale focuses on the stress of actual deportation, the ability to obtain a driver’s license, and permanent residency. The access to services subscale addresses the stress of whether or not they could access medical services, state or federal means programs, and insurance. Finally, the media sentiment subscale determines the degree of stress resulting from exposure to anti-immigration sentiment in the media.
The scale was pilot tested on 39 Latine college students. Twenty were unauthorized and nineteen were authorized. The coefficient alpha was 0.97 for the overall scale. Unauthorized Latine immigrant college students reported significantly higher stress regarding migration, intrafamilial conflict, the fear of discovery, employment status, legal issues, and access to healthcare. The coefficient alpha for each of the subscales was 0.92, 0.79, 0.94, 0.93. 0.70, 0.88, and 0.92, respectively. No significant difference was found for negative public sentiment in the media. The scale that was administered in the current study eliminated one question regarding financial aid assistance in the access to services subscale because the sample in this study did not include college students. The coefficient alpha for this study was 0.96 for the overall scales and 0.90, 0.86, 0.92, 0.92, 0.72, 0.90, and 0.85, for the subscales, respectively.
Beck Depression Inventory-II. The Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) is a 21-item self-report measure assessing depression symptom severity in the past 2 weeks [59]. Responses to each item are assessed on a four-point scale (0–3). The sum of all the items determines the score, and the inventory uses cut-score guidelines to evaluate severity. Severity ranges from minimal (0–13), mild (14–19), and moderate (20–28), to severe (29–63). Beck et al. reported a total score of alpha coefficients of 0.92 for psychiatric outpatients and 0.93 for normal college students. The coefficient alpha for the current sample was 0.91.
State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) is a questionnaire comprising two, 20-item scales designed to measure state and trait anxiety [60]. The inventory was revised from the previous STAI to ensure a purer measure of state and trait anxiety [61]. The trait version of the inventory assesses one’s disposition in terms of responding with anxiety to situations perceived as threatening. Participants are asked to respond based on how they generally feel. The state version of the inventory determines how a participant is feeling right now, at this moment. Responses are given on a frequency scale ranging from one (almost never) to four (almost always). The scores are determined using the sum of all the items. Content validity was demonstrated with convergence of DSM-IV diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder and STAI items [62]. The findings for internal consistency found that the state anxiety subscale alpha varied between 0.83 and 0.87, and the trait anxiety subscale alpha varied between 0.94 and 0.96 [63]. The coefficient alpha for the current study was 0.65 and 0.68 for the state–trait subscales, respectively.
Perceived Stress Scale. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) measures the degree to which situations in one’s life are appraised as stressful [64]. The 14 items in the scale were designed to ascertain the degree to which respondents find their lives unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloading, and was intended for use in community samples with at least a junior high school education. It is a 14-item instrument that assesses perceived stressful experiences or stress responses over the previous month using five-point Likert type scales. The total possible scores are from 0 to 56. Higher scores represent high stress levels. The PSS is a well-established measure. The creators reported convergent validity indicated by relationships with depressive (r = 0.76) and physical (r = 0.70) symptomatology scales. The internal consistency reliability was high, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficient ranging from 0.84 to 0.86 [65]. The coefficient alpha for this sample was 0.74.
Demographic and Socioeconomic. The demographic and socioeconomic questionnaire was administered to obtain background information from the participants. The self-report questionnaire requested information regarding age, sex, income, religious affiliation, level of education, and generational status.

2.3. Method: Design and Procedures

The study was a cross-sectional design intended to compare the experience of psychosocial stressors and four measures of well-being across two groups with differing immigration statuses. The participants were recruited at three types of locations: nonprofit agencies, day worker programs, and a local flea market. Officials from four nonprofit agencies and the day worker program were contacted and once permission was granted, arrangements were made to visit the sites. At the first two locations, patrons were approached and asked to be participants in the study. At the flea market, a table was set up with information about the survey and the patrons were invited to participate. In all locations, an informed consent, informing them of their rights as participants, was distributed to all participants to sign. The data was collected before the onset of COVID-19. The survey took approximately 20–35 min to complete and was available in English and Spanish. Once participants completed the survey they were debriefed and given a $35 gift card to a local discount store. Overall, only ten people refused to complete the survey. Data is available upon request from the corresponding author.

3. Results

3.1. Preliminary Analysis

Preliminary analyses were conducted to determine if the demographic variables were related to the dependent variables. Initially, Pearson-product moment correlations were conducted to discern any relationships between demographic variables and the measures of psychosocial stressors or the other measures of well-being. The results of the analysis are presented in Table 2. Age, income, and length of residence were significantly related to the LPSS. These were used as covariates in the subsequent primary analysis with the measures of mental health. A MANOVA was used to determine if the measures of mental health differed significantly by participant sex. See Table 3. Only perceived social stress (PSS) significantly differed F(1, 174) = 5.74, p < 0.01, with females (M = 2.42; SD = 0.75) reporting significantly higher levels of perceived stress than males (M = 2.18; SD = 0.61). Sex was used as a covariate in subsequent analysis with this PSS as a dependent variable.
Table 2. Intercorrelations of the dependent variables, independent variables, and participant variables (N = 176).
Table 3. MANOVA of sex by four measures of well-being.

3.2. Immigration Status, Psychosocial Stressors, and Mental Health

An ANCOVA was conducted to determine if the LPSS–Latine psychosocial stressors differed by legal residence status (authorized by unauthorized status). A Levene’s test of homogeneity for normality and variance was not significant; therefore, assumptions of homogeneity were met. Age, income, and length of residence were entered as covariates. Unauthorized Latine immigrants (M = 4.56; SD = 0.98) experienced significantly more stress resulting from unique psychosocial stressors than authorized Latine immigrants (M = 2.73; SD = 1.05), F(4, 162) = 66.71, p < 0.001. Analysis indicated an effect size of 0.29. A MANCOVA was conducted, with subscales of the Latine Psychosocial Stressors Scale (LPSS), to assess which psychosocial stressors unauthorized Latine immigrants experienced compared to documented immigrants. Age, income, and length of residence were entered as covariates. Assumptions of normality, homogeneity of variance, and homogeneity of covariances were met. See Table 4 for results. Unauthorized Latine immigrants reported significantly higher scores with regard to the fear of discovery, employment, legal problems, and access to services. No differences were found for familial conflict and the social–political climate in the media. Both groups reported a high level of stress related to media. A MANCOVA was conducted with legal residence status and sex as a covariate to assess significant differences between four measures of psychological well-being, namely depression, state anxiety, trait anxiety, and perceived stress. The assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variance using Levene’s tests were met for this analysis. No significant main effect was found for either legal residence status on any of the four measures of well-being. The effect sizes for each measure of well-being were less than 0.08. Similarly, power for measures of well-being were below 0.20.
Table 4. Significant differences in psychosocial stressors between authorized (n = 73) and unauthorized (n = 103) status.

4. Discussion

The focus of the study was to determine if unauthorized verses authorized Latine individuals experienced more psychosocial stressors and whether there were differences in overall well-being between the two groups. The findings of the study supported the first hypothesis. Unauthorized Latine immigrants reported more experiences with psychosocial stressors than authorized Latine immigrants. This was true for all of the psychosocial stressors assessed, except for media sentiment. These findings provide empirical support for previous research, which has found that unauthorized Latine individuals have greater levels of psychological and social stressors compared to authorized immigrants [13,46,47,49]. For researchers, the results highlight the need to assess the differences in Latine participants’ documentation status, as the immigrant experience is not uniform [66,67,68].
The lack of significant differences for media sentiment is noteworthy. Both groups had elevated scores for negative experiences related to media sentiment, irrespective of immigration status. This is consistent with previous research [69]. Negative media sentiment seems to be an issue for Latine immigrants in general; however, a source of this stress may be due to authorized immigrants feeling they are being treated or portrayed as if they are unauthorized. Past research has identified the perception of discrimination and feeling like an outsider to be one of the most stressful aspects for Latine immigrants, regardless of the length of time in the United States [70]. Furthermore, Kulis and colleagues [71] suggest that Latine individuals, on the whole, may be more likely to perceive discrimination, and therefore experience distress due to the negative stereotypes often portrayed by the media about their ethnic group. This is further exemplified by Del Río [72], who has divided Latine media studies into two approaches, with one focusing on the issues of stereotypes and representation, and the second on viewing Latine individuals as problematic often relatd to immigration issues, language, and class.
The study did not support our second hypothesis. No differences emerged between authorized and unauthorized immigrants in the study on the four measures of well-being. Surprisingly, greater experiences of psychosocial stressors did not seem to impact the well-being of unauthorized immigrants in this sample. There are different possible explanations for the lack of findings. First, it is possible the study did not have sufficient power to detect a difference given the sample. A larger sample may have helped detect significant findings. Second, similar to previous research that has examined immigrants as a whole, the current research did not find differences in psychiatric symptoms or disorders based on immigration status [73]. One possible explanation may be that the inventories were not sensitive to how Latine immigrants manifest symptomatology. Sue et al. [74] indicated that some ethnic groups, and Latine individuals in particular, may somaticize psychological symptoms. Also, linguistical differences could have resulted in variability of how words were interpreted or the meaning of the items [75]. Third, the inventories may be culturally biased, not accounting for the unique ways Latine individuals express symptoms. For example, construct bias may have occurred, meaning that how the constructs and behaviors are measured is not identical between different cultures. Therefore, while the measures of well-being are able to detect symptomology for European American samples, the same may not be true with a culturally different Latine sample [76]. Future research can address some of these issues by increasing the sample size and identifying or creating inventories that culturally align with the population.
The Latino health paradox may also help provide context around these findings. The Latino health paradox refers to that phenomenon that recent immigrants, despite having less access to care, tended to report fewer psychiatric disorders than immigrants who have been in the U.S. for longer periods or than U.S.-born individuals [77]. This trend has been observed in unauthorized Latine immigrant populations as well [78]. When controlling for time in the U.S., unauthorized Latine immigrants report physical and mental health outcomes that are similar to those of legally authorized or U.S.-born Latine individuals [79]. Additionally, unauthorized Latine immigrants reported lower predicted probabilities of serious psychological distress, which was consistent when comparing shorter- and longer-duration in the U.S. [78].
The potential protective nature of cultural values may help explain and understand the Latino health paradox [80]. The positive impact of traditional cultural values has been well documented in the Latine population [81,82]. Research suggests religiosity may serve as a protective factor for Latine individuals [83,84]. Even though religiosity was not assessed in the current study, a majority of participants identified themselves as Roman Catholic or with another religious affiliation. Religion may help them cope with circumstances they cannot control, like past migration experiences. In these times of need they may to turn to God or their faith to cope, even if they have varying levels religiosity, highlighting the resilience of this population.
A goal of this research was to determine the role or impact of authorization status on immigrant mental health and well-being. In spite of possible traumatic migration experiences, these findings suggest that unauthorized immigrants may experience additional stressors compared to those who are authorized. This study makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the resilience and strength of Latine immigrants, especially unauthorized immigrants, despite the additional stressors they face. What is unique here is that documentation status may not be a determining factor in terms of mental health, but a complicating factor in the already stressful and chaotic life that immigrants have regardless of their status.

5. Limitations

These findings helped elucidate Latine immigrants’ experiences related to their documentation; however, some limitations existed in this study. First, the Latine Psychosocial Stressors Scale was developed for the purposes of this study to examine psychosocial stressors of unauthorized immigrants. While the measure has been piloted with a small sample of Latine immigrant college students, additional research is needed for scale validation. Future studies should examine the use of this measure with a larger community sample across different Latine ethnic groups to further develop measure dimensionality, reliability, and validity [85]. Second, the study did not examine the impact of authorization status or stress over an extended period of time. The rapid changes in immigration policy have likely increased levels of stress over time and it is important to highlight this increase. Third, future studies should assess reasons for migration and social support, as these could have been related to well-being. Fourth, specific Latine subgroups were not examined, as a majority of participants identified as Mexican. This may have been the result of availability sampling. Additional research is needed to examine differences across Latine subgroups. The Latine population is diverse, with each subgroup having its own culture with unique historical and political experiences. The reasons for migration, migration experiences, transitions to the U.S., and the process of documentation may be very different across groups. Therefore, caution is needed when generalizing these findings to other Latine subgroups.

6. Conclusions

This research highlights the value and importance of examining psychosocial stressors for all immigrants, but especially for those who are unauthorized. The elevated stressors experienced by unauthorized immigrants highlights the importance for mental health providers to attend to these issues, in order to better understand the areas that most impact the individual. Within a therapeutic setting it is also important to note that while Latine immigrants may experience many stressors, they may not perceive them to be highly problematic or exhibit traditional mental health symptoms. It may be beneficial in these moments to attend to any potential psychosomatic symptoms, given that Latine individuals may experience mental health difficulties physically. Furthermore, it may also be important to examine how the individual’s cultural values may assist them through their difficulties, in order to probe and build on these potential protective factors. This research highlights the resilience among Latine immigrants, which is an important factor to recognize across therapeutic and research settings when working with these populations. Despite their struggles, there remains power and strength.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, L.R.-S.; methodology, L.R.-S.; formal analysis, L.R.-S. and J.D.L.; investigation, L.R.-S.; data curation, L.R.-S.; writing—original draft preparation, L.R.-S.; and writing—review and editing, L.R.-S. and J.D.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by Santa Clara University.

Institutional Review Board Statement

This study was conducted in accordance with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki (1975, revised in 2013) [86]. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Santa Clara University (Protocols code 25-11-2503, date of approval 18 November 2025).

Data Availability Statement

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author and not posted elsewhere to protect the privacy of the participants and their information.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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