Anxiety Grows Over Anti-Immigrant Actions: 'We Feel They Are After Us'
"We have people walking in, in crisis, emotionally and mentally. We have people calling," says Mia Fioritto Rubin, director of immigration legal services at World Relief Chicago. "We have people just desperate for an answer, and they tell us, 'I just can't be at peace until I know that my family member is coming. I can't be at peace until I know that I'm allowed to stay.' "
And Rubin says the organization's clients who are worried are not just those here illegally or waiting to gain legal status.
"We have had a wave of elderly people coming to us, who have had green cards for decades, who are all of a sudden very concerned that that green card will be taken away from them, and [they] are hoping to apply for citizenship," she says.
"We have people who have already naturalized and have been citizens for years who have come back to us and asked, 'Could this be taken away from me?' " she adds. "The fear is there for every single person who was not born on American soil, and even some people who were born here, but to immigrant families, there is the concern that somehow, some way, they're going to be forced to leave."
The biggest fear, says Rubin, is the uncertainty of not knowing what's coming next. That, she says, is making it difficult for immigrants and their families to build their lives and is impacting their ability to feel settled.
With new policies and procedures being implemented in what she calls a "capricious way," she says that fear can lead to panic, which can have significant health impacts.
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/05/626241032/anxiety-grows-over-anti-immigrant-actions-we-feel-they-are-after-us
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