Effects of Deportation on the Remaining Family Members

Effects of Deportation on the remaining Family Members
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Introduction
Background of the Study
The continuous influx of immigrants in the U.S. has significantly contributed to the U.S population. With most immigrants living in the country, undocumented social scientists have expressed fear of increased terrorism and high Government spending. As a result, the U.S. has enacted stringent immigration policies to regulate immigrants' inflow (Dreby, 2015). This has led to the deportation of immigrants from the U.S. Statistics show that in 2013, there were more than a 4.5million U.S. citizen children who live under the care of one parent living illegally in the U.S (Enchautegui and Menjívar, 2015). Between 2009 and 2013, approximately 4million illegal immigrants were deported back to their country of origin, and it is believed that 2million of them were parents to U.S. citizen children (Dreby, 2015). Following this, it is evident that the primary victims of deportation are children. In general, deportation negatively impacts remaining family members emotionally and financially and can have adverse effects on the family dynamics.
Problem Statement
Deportation of illegal immigrants separates families from their loved ones and breaks down the family structure (Enchautegui and Menjívar, 2015). The family is the basic unit of a community. It is from families that children acquire life skills, principles, and values that guide them through adulthood. Hence, this structure's breakdown exposes children to poor coping skills, vulnerability to abuse, and lack of identity (Zayas, Aguilar-Gaxiola, and Yoon, 2015). In deportation, the family members are separated, and the remaining family members spend so many years worrying about the whereabouts and what will happen to them in the future (Naxarian, 2014). Deportation of parents causes children to be put up for adoption and foster care instead of living adopted by their relatives, if any exist. This is because their relatives may also be at risk of being deported. As a result, the concept of a stable family is distorted for children above the age of 5years. This can have profound and devastating psychological impacts that lead to depression. This is because there are no hopes of reuniting or communicating with their departed loved ones (Nazarian, 2014).
Children signed up under foster care after the deportation of their develops innate fear. This is attributed to the absence of an older person to protect and guide (Nazarian, 2014). In this light, this feeling of abandonment impacts a child's ego and self-worth. They may start feeling inferior to the dominant race, which rob...