Undocumented Latino Families

Project Overview

The Texas Institute for Child & Family Wellbeing (TXICFW) worked to strengthen and formalize the UT School of Social Work’s response to recent waves of migrants seeking asylum, particularly from the “Northern Triangle” countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

Given that Texas has a large number of immigration detention facilities, including two facilities that house women and children, social workers have been called upon to assist attorneys by completing psychosocial evaluations. Informal networks have developed of social work professional responding to requests by attorneys. In order to most effectively help those in detention facilities, the School of Social Work organized resources for trauma survivors in detention and their attorneys, streamlining evaluation requests and engaging students in advocacy learning opportunities.

Project Objectives

1. Increasing social work response to immigrant detention
2. Increasing number of women in detention centers receiving psychosocial evaluations
3. Improving knowledge of trauma, the impact of trauma and healing
4. Providing students with opportunities for advocacy learning

in 2015, a team comprising researchers Dr. Jodi Berger Cardoso, Dr. Monica Faulkner and Dr. Jennifer Scott sought to understand the challenges of parenting in the context of detention and deportation risk. Researchers conducted and recorded interviews with 40 undocumented parents, 20 in Houston and 20 in Austin, during the summer of 2012.

This project was completed in 2015. Please contact the Principal Investigator with any questions.