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While the literature has focused on the benefits granted by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to undocumented youths in the USA, the purpose of this paper is to focus on the challenges encountered during the application process.

This paper is based on 60 semi-structured interviews with Latino undocumented youths living in the New York City and northern New Jersey metropolitan area.

The policy was intended to improve the inclusion of some undocumented youths in the USA by temporarily shielding them from deportation and providing them with a social security number. Analyses indicate great variation in youths’ experiences while applying for DACA, including program knowledge, financial impact, and application assistance – some of which was alleviated by respondents’ political engagement. This paper shows that participants suffered from anxiety due to the manner of implementation of the program.

This research is based on the self-disclosure of participants as undocumented youths. Fieldwork also took place in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area, which is traditionally considered as more “immigrant-friendly” context than other areas of the USA.

This paper provides much needed information on the ways in which undocumented youths navigate the federal immigration system and the anxiety associated with it. This paper demonstrates the possibility that a federal policy whose goal is inclusionary could be implemented at the local level in such a way as to promote anxiety and alienation. It also highlights the role of political engagement in shaping immigrant youth’s experiences in the USA.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated chronic disparities in income, employment and health-care access. Yet, little is known about how various sources of economic and emotional strain (i.e. caregiving, justice system involvement and documentation status) intersect during the pandemic. The purpose of this study is to understand how undocumented women in justice-involved families experienced the pandemic.

Surveys of 221 mothers of justice-involved youth examined differences between documented and undocumented parents in COVID-19 testing, health and economic concerns related to the pandemic and generalized anxiety.

The results revealed undocumented women were less likely to receive COVID-19 testing than documented women, despite no difference between the two groups in suspicion that they may have contracted the virus. Also, undocumented women were more concerned than documented women about losing a job, not having enough food, not having enough non-food supplies, not having access to basic utilities or internet, losing their usual childcare services and losing a loved one to COVID-19.

The findings highlight the vulnerability of justice-involved families who have an undocumented member and implications for long-term solutions to address these disparities are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the intersection between critical literacy and digital activism. Critical literacy is a form of instruction that teaches students to question power structures and societal injustices, while digital activism introduces methods for individuals and groups to use digital tools to effect social and political change. This review argues that digital literacy is the natural partner to pedagogical approaches informed by critical literacy, which attempts to uncover, address, question and solve social problems.

An illustrative example of collaborative student choice and action is offered through a multimedia project with actionable hashtags for sharing online. The paper concludes with a discussion of how educators can foster more collaborative choice and action by intertwining critical and digital literacies at all levels of education. However, implementation and application of these ideas lies not only with educators and administrators, but most importantly, with students themselves.

In order for students to be most prepared for meaningful interactions in the global and digital world, critical literacy, digital literacy and digital activism must become a core part of classroom instruction. Multimedia projects that are easily sharable and can track analytics are a successful way to raise consciousness and advocate for local and global action.

The powerful instructional practices that link critical and digital literacies provide students with the skills to continue questioning multiple viewpoints and promoting social justice issues within and beyond classroom walls.

In South Africa, the majority of the population struggles to access care and support for mental health challenges. Drawing on challenges faced by asylum seekers and refugees in the urban margins of Johannesburg, this paper aims to explore the relationship between migration and mental health through a lens of heightened vulnerability, precarious urban spaces and unmet basic needs.

Remote interviews were conducted with respondents working in the mental health-care sector (public and private) and with migrant communities in Johannesburg. Respondents were identified via purposive sampling and interviews were conducted in English. Key findings were identified using thematic analysis.

Effective responses to asylum seekers and refugees facing mental health challenges are based on an understanding of context, of crisis and of the need to meet basic needs such as paying rent, finding employment and providing for families. These “daily stressors” not only compound “extreme traumatisation” but are a form of trauma in and of itself.

This paper shows how alternative responses determined by an understanding of context, of crisis and of the need to meet basic needs provide critical and potentially far-reaching interventions. Locating trauma in the unmet needs, precarious urban spaces and marginalisation opens up space to further question the ways that migration and mental health shape and reshape one another.

The purpose of this article is to critically examine two possible solutions to the lack of citizenship rights of children who lack documentation. Many industrialized countries must deal with undocumented children who have resided in the country most of their lives. In the USA, immigrants brought as children by their parents illegally are not eligible to receive financial help in most states for higher education, receive federal health care, or obtain driver's licenses. Even if they are qualified, they cannot legally work.

The article provides an in-depth analysis of the Dream Act and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The benefit of this study is to critically examine two possible solutions to the problem of undocumented children who have lived most of their lives in the USA.

The two solutions are analyzed in terms of broader conceptions of citizenship and human rights. Citizen rights are contested rights in the USA for undocumented immigrants and their children. It is found that theories of immigration and citizenship do not adequately explain the situation of undocumented childhood arrivals. After compulsory public education, undocumented students’ lives are at the mercy of state and federal administration policies. Citizenship theory is analyzed as it applies to undocumented immigrants brought as children to the USA.

This paper is limited to undocumented children in the USA.

The results point to the need for universal policies that will ensure young adults will have the critical resources and associated rights.

As Latinos become a large proportion of the US population, barriers to their continued education will impose significant economic and personal costs for individuals who have “identity without citizenship”.

This is among the first academic paper to link undocumented childhood arrivals in the USA, citizenship theory and public policy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of documentation on the educational experiences, college readiness and aspirations of undocumented Latinx migrant and seasonal farmworkers.

This ethnographic study was conducted in a High School Equivalency Program at a large university in the Midwest. Data was collected during two semesters across a three-year span. Participants included six Mexican migrant and seasonal farmworkers who were preparing to earn their General Educational Development (GED) diploma. Using the grounded theory, data was collected and analyzed simultaneously where initial and focused coding took place, followed by cross-case analysis.

Analysis of student interviews, participant observations and in-depth fieldnotes that include the K-12 educational experiences, experiences during and after the High School Equivalency Program reveal that undocumented Latinx migrant and seasonal farmworkers aspire to earn a GED diploma to access a better future inclusive of college. However, the legal liminality, the uncertainty and ambiguity of being undocumented, impacts their educational journey prior to, during and beyond the High School Equivalency Program. Furthermore, undocumented Latinx migrant and seasonal farmworkers are unable to change their material conditions with a GED because of their documentation status.

Although researchers have studied the education experiences of Latinx migrant and seasonal farmworkers, analysis and consideration of documentation status is missing. This study contributes much needed findings about the impact of documentation status on the educational experiences, college readiness, and aspirations of Latinx migrant and seasonal farmworkers.

In September 2014, 1,200 unaccompanied immigrant youth, from a region of Central America known for high rates of violence and homicide, enrolled in a suburban school district of New York State. This paper aims to highlight the stories of the newly arrived Central American high school youth, as told through Bilingual (Spanish/English) digital testimonios completed in the English Language Arts classroom. The author examines how the telling of their stories of surviving migration offers a way for the youth to respond to political and emotional struggles. The author also explores how the youth become active participants in the telling of political narratives/testimonios.

Part of a larger ethnographic case study, the author adopts the ethnographic approaches of the new literacy studies. Testimonios as a research epistemology privilege the youth’s narratives as sources of knowledge, and allow the youth to reclaim their authority in telling their own stories.

The integration of critical digital texts into the English Language Arts classroom created a participatory classroom culture where the Central American youth’s digital testimonios can be seen as a shared history of struggles that make visible the physical toil of their journeys, the truth of their border crossings and their enactments of political identities. As a collective, the youth’s stories become part of national and global political dialogues.

At a time when immigrant youth struggle for rights, to further their education and to negotiate the daily experiences of living in a new country, this research offers a unique perspective on the politics of inclusion and exclusion for unaccompanied youth.

This study aims to explore the challenges of providing primary health care (PHC) to Afghan immigrants in Tehran as an important global human right issue.

In this exploratory study, a total of 25 purposively selected PHC providers, including physicians, psychologists and midwives, were approached for face-to-face, semi-structured interviews, lasting 30 min on average. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data.

The most common challenges of providing PHC to Afghan immigrants were categorized at individual, organizational and societal levels. Communication barriers and socioeconomic features emerged at the individual level. The organizational challenges included mainly the lack of insurance coverage for all immigrants and the lack of a screening system upon the immigrants’ arrival from the borders. At the societal level, the negative attitudes toward Afghan immigrants were causing a problematic challenge.

The main limitation was the possibility that only health-care professionals with particular positive or negative perspectives about immigrants enter into the study, because of the voluntary nature of participation.

Findings can help policymakers adopt evidence-informed strategies for facilitating PHC provision and improving the access to health care in immigrants as a global human right concern.

This study alerts about undesirable consequences of certain attitudes and behaviors of the society toward immigrant health.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies conducted in PHC centers in Tehran Province that explores the challenges of providing PHC to Afghan immigrants.

Community belongingness (CB) has been found to be positively associated with subjective well-being (SWB). Scholars have verified this connection with different social groups. In the present study, the authors are interested in the group of unemployed people and compare their situation to employed people. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to examine whether a sense of community belonging prevents negative impacts of unemployment on SWB.

The study is based on a survey conducted in 2016. The data consists of 830 respondents from which 723 had the labor market status (LMS) of employed people and 107 had the LMS of unemployed people.

The results of this study show that there are both positive and negative factors which support or weaken CB. Interpersonal trust supports the sense of community belonging of individuals, but loneliness weakens their CB. However, unemployed people have a lower rate of CB and SWB comparing to employed people. Furthermore, CB is positively associated with SWB, but this connection is conditional in order that a high rate of CB buffers the negative impacts of unemployment.

The study emphasizes the significance of CB as a basis of SWB. On the other hand, the negative impacts of unemployment can be mitigated by supporting integration of unemployed people into social communities. From a sociopolitical view, the results underline the fact that governmental measurements promote the social inclusion of unemployed people.

In this paper, the authors suggest that Central Americans can use entrepreneurship to solve economic uncertainty in their home country and that entrepreneurship can contribute to reducing the number of undocumented migrants to the USA.

The authors first illustrate the context of Central American illegal migration to the USA from a transitional entrepreneurship perspective, the authors address the economic drivers of illegal migration from Central America, which results in marginalization in the USA. Second, the authors build a theoretical model that suggests that Central Americans can improve their entrepreneurial abilities through the entrepreneurial cognitive adjustment mechanism.

Central Americans at risk of illegally migrating to the USA have high entrepreneurial aptitudes. Entrepreneurship can help them avoid the economic uncertainty that drives Central Americans to illegally migrate to the USA and become part of a marginalized community of undocumented immigrants. This conceptual paper introduces an entrepreneurial cognitive adjustment mechanism as a tool for Central Americans to reshape their personalities and increase their entrepreneurial abilities in their home countries. In particular, entrepreneurial intentions reshape the personality characteristics of individuals (in terms of high agreeableness and openness to experiences, as well as low neuroticism) through the entrepreneurial cognitive adjustment mechanism, which consists of reflective action in sensemaking, cognitive frameworks in pattern recognition and coping in positive affect.

This paper studies Central Americans at risk of illegal migration using the lens of transitional entrepreneurship, which advances the understanding of the antecedents to marginalized immigrant communities in the USA and suggests a possible solution for this phenomenon. Besides, the authors build a cognitive mechanism to facilitate the transitional process starting from entrepreneurial intention to reshaping individuals' personality, which further opens individuals' minds to entrepreneurial opportunities. Since entrepreneurial intention applies the same way to all entrepreneurs, the authors' aim of constructing the entrepreneurial intention unfolding process will go beyond transitional entrepreneurship and contribute to intention-action knowledge generation (Donaldson et al., 2021). Moreover, the conceptual study contributes to public policy such that international and local agencies can better utilize resources and implement long-term solutions to the drivers of illegal migration from Central America to the USA.