NPR: One clinic tracks the heavy toll Trump's immigration crackdown takes on mental health
The fear and terror of the Trump administration's "mass deportation campaign" and vicious verbal attacks on immigrants ate taking a toll. Human trauma is the result with unsurprising health consequences. Rhitu Chatterjee for NPR reports that
"As the Trump administration's immigration crackdown stretches into its second year, researchers and health care workers say that it is creating a mental health crisis in immigrant communities.
Data from one primary care clinic in Los Angeles, shared exclusively with NPR, shows a sharp rise in anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts among patients."
The report continues "When we look at our data during periods of intensified enforcement, our screening data showed a clear rise in distress," says a licensed marriage and family therapist and executive director of behavioral health at Zocalo Health, a clinic in Los Angeles that mainly serves Latino families on Medicaid. "Immigration enforcement is functioning as a real time public health stressor in the communities that we serve."
