Deportation enforcement, mental health, and health risk behaviors of hispanic adolescents

This study estimates the causal effect of intensified deportation enforcement on adolescent mental health and related behaviors. We pool data from the CDC's biennial Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, 2009–2019, covering students in grades 9–12. Our primary analysis focuses on 174,454 Hispanic adolescents, weighted to be representative of enrolled students in participating jurisdictions. We implement an exposure difference-in-differences design that exploits the national reinstatement of Secure Communities in 2017 and cross-state variation in pre-policy exposure (the year-2000 unauthorized immigrant share), with state and year fixed effects, individual and state independent variables, survey weights, and state-clustered standard errors. Event-study estimates examine pre-trends, and a triple-difference specification contrasts Hispanic with non-Hispanic White adolescents. Outcomes include persistent sadness/hopelessness, suicidal ideation/plan/attempt, past-30-day alcohol use and cigarette smoking, fighting, and self-reported poor grades. Findings show that greater exposure to intensified enforcement increases the level of sadness/hopelessness by 1.8 percentage points, suicidal ideation by 1.4 percentage points, suicide plan by 1.1 percentage points, and suicide attempt by 0.6 percentage points. It also raises smoking by 0.6 percentage points, drinking by 1.4 percentage points, fighting by 1.9 percentage points, and poor grades by 0.4 percentage points. Event studies show no differential pre-trends and significant post-2017 effects. A triple-difference comparison confirms that effects are concentrated among Hispanic adolescents relative to non-Hispanic White peers.