“They See It in My Eyes”: How Undocumented Mothers Experience and Transmit Immigration-Related Fear

Abstract

This study explores how undocumented mothers in the United States experience immigration-related fear and how they perceive that fear being transmitted to their U.S. citizen children. Using a secondary qualitative analysis of interviews originally collected for a study on guardianship decision-making, this research focuses on a subset of participants—Latina mothers raising children without their husbands due to separation or deportation. Guided by feminist motherhood theory and emotion socialization theory, the analysis highlights how legal precarity, gendered caregiving responsibilities, and exclusion from essential services shape daily life and parenting. Although the original interviews did not focus specifically on fear transmission, mothers described living with constant anxiety and adapting their behavior, routines, and emotional expressions to protect their children. They also reflected on how their children came to recognize and internalize that fear, often without direct conversations. This study contributes to feminist social work by illuminating the emotional and structural burdens undocumented mothers carry alone and by urging practitioners to recognize the ways fear is absorbed within families. It calls for trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and community-based interventions that address the layered vulnerabilities of undocumented single mothers and help them better support their children under conditions of chronic uncertainty.

Parenting is demanding under any circumstance, but for undocumented Latina mothers in the United States—particularly those raising children alone due to deportation, detention, or family separation—the challenges are compounded by structural inequality, legal exclusion, and constant fear. These women parent under precarious conditions shaped by immigration policy, gendered labor expectations, and a lack of access to basic rights and services. They live with daily uncertainty about their presence in the country, while shouldering full responsibility for the well-being of their U.S. citizen children. This includes navigating restricted access to healthcare, formal employment, and legal protections (Berger Cardoso et al., 2018; Chavez-Dueñas & Adames, 2022; Dreby, 2012). In recent years, the sociopolitical climate in the United States has again intensified pressures on undocumented immigrants and their families. State-level legislation, such as Florida's 2023 immigration law (SB 1718), has increased local cooperation with federal enforcement and restricted access to health care, employment, and transportation for undocumented residents. These measures have renewed fear and uncertainty within mixed-status households, especially among single mothers who already face economic hardship and heavy caregiving responsibilities. In this context, understanding how fear functions within families, and how mothers attempt to manage or mitigate its effects on their children, has become increasingly urgent for social work research and practice, particularly given the field's role in supporting immigrant families under conditions of structural vulnerability.

Current estimates suggest that around 14 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States, including hundreds of thousands of single mothers caring for U.S. citizen children (Gelatt et al., 2025). Many of these families live in rural or agricultural regions with limited access to social services and immigrant-serving organizations. The combination of legal status, caregiving responsibilities, and social exclusion places these mothers at a heightened risk for isolation and exploitation. As enforcement intensifies, the condition of “deportability,” described by De Genova (2002) as a persistent state of uncertainty and vulnerability shaped by the ongoing threat of detention or expulsion, continues to define everyday life for undocumented families. In this context, understanding how fear functions within families—and how mothers attempt to manage or mitigate its effects on their children—has become increasingly urgent for social work research and practice.

The consequences of deportability are not limited to adults. Research shows that this ongoing threat of enforcement impacts every layer of family life, shaping parenting decisions, limiting service access, and influencing how children are socialized (Berger Cardoso et al., 2018; Cross et al., 2022; Yoshikawa, 2011; Zayas, 2015). Mixed-status families—where children are U.S. citizens and parents are undocumented—often adopt hyper-vigilant routines and restrict mobility and visibility to avoid drawing attention. Parents limit driving, miss healthcare appointments, and avoid interactions with school personnel or service providers out of fear that any exposure might trigger detention (Kirksey, 2024; Philbin & Ayón, 2016; Shu-Huah Wang & Kaushal, 2018; Yoshikawa & Kholoptseva, 2013).

Existing scholarship has examined undocumented Latina motherhood from different perspectives, including caregiving, labor, belonging, and resistance, but it has rarely focused on how fear moves within families, especially in single-mother households. Prior studies have shown how Latina mothers navigate the combined pressures of low-wage work, gendered responsibility, and exclusion from institutional support (Bruhn & Oliveira 2022; León-Pérez et al., 2021; Maldonado, 2017). Others have discussed how maternal roles are shaped by structural inequality and by moral expectations related to care and sacrifice (Belliveau, 2011; Montano et al., 2024). Within this body of work, fear appears not only as an emotional response but as a social condition shaped by surveillance and control.

Prior research shows that Latina mothers internalize and manage fear as part of their caregiving and survival strategies (Bickham Mendez, 2020), while confronting fear itself can become a political act of belonging and resistance (Deeb-Sossa & Bickham Mendez et al., 2022). Fear, then, becomes an organizing principle in daily life. For undocumented mothers, especially those without a partner, this fear carries an emotional cost (Berger Cardoso et al., 2018; Cross et al., 2022; De Genova, 2002). They are expected to provide safety and stability for their children while feeling unsafe and unsupported themselves. Parenting becomes an act of emotional containment, requiring mothers to regulate their expressions of worry or sadness so as not to destabilize their children. Yet even when not openly discussed, fear is passed on. A recent meta-synthesis by Rafieifar and colleagues (2025b) found that undocumented parents communicate immigration-related fear to their children both directly and indirectly—through behavioral modeling, emotional tone, and the structure of daily life. Some parents delay conversations about legal status in an attempt to shield their children, while others disclose gradually, hoping to build resilience. These patterns show how undocumented status shapes not only what families say, but how they say it, and when. Children in these households are often acutely aware of their family's vulnerability, even without full explanations. They overhear conversations, witness parental anxiety, and consume media about raids or deportations. Over time, they may internalize stigma, hide their background, or struggle with shame and confusion about what it means to be “illegal” (Cross et al., 2022; Dreby, 2012). Some children take on adult-like roles such as interpreting in medical appointments, managing money, or even leveraging their citizenship in moments of household conflict (Cornejo et al., 2021; Delgado, 2020). These dynamics can shift power relations at home, blur parent-child boundaries, and contribute to emotional strain.

While scholars have documented many of these impacts within mixed-status families, less attention has been paid to the specific experiences of undocumented mothers who are parenting alone. There remains a significant gap in the literature regarding how the intersections of gender, legal precarity, and solo caregiving shape parenting practices, family stress, and emotional communication. Feminist scholars have long argued that motherhood cannot be separated from the structures in which it takes place. As Belliveau (2011) has shown, undocumented mothers’ struggles are not simply personal, but deeply political. Their parenting is shaped by systems that criminalize migration, devalue women's labor, and render immigrant caregiving invisible.

Building on this body of work, the current study explores how undocumented Latina single mothers experience immigration-related fear and how they perceive that fear being transmitted to their U.S. citizen children. Drawing on feminist motherhood theory and emotion socialization theory, it situates maternal fear not only as an individual emotion but as a product of structural inequality and caregiving under precarity. In centering the voices of these women, this study highlights both the emotional burdens and the resilience that sustain undocumented motherhood in the current political moment.

Theoretical Framework

This study draws on feminist motherhood theory (Collins, 2016; O’Reilly, 2008) and emotion socialization theory (Eisenberg et al., 1998) to explore how undocumented mothers raising children without a partner experience and transmit immigration-related fear within the family. Feminist motherhood theory highlights how mothering is shaped by broader systems of oppression, including racism, patriarchy, and state surveillance. It centers the experiences of mothers whose caregiving takes place in contexts of structural inequality, marginalization, and legal vulnerability (Collins, 2016; O’Reilly, 2008). Rather than viewing motherhood as a private or individual task, this framework positions it as a political act shaped by intersecting identities and institutional constraints. For undocumented mothers, parenting involves both emotional labor and ongoing efforts to shield their children from harm. It is a form of survival and resistance, carried out while facing limited access to support systems, legal protection, or stable employment.

At the same time, emotion socialization theory offers a developmental perspective on how emotions, especially fear, are communicated and learned within families. This theory explains that children come to understand emotions through direct conversations, modeling, and the overall emotional environment created by their caregivers (Eisenberg, 2020; Eisenberg et al., 1998). In this study, fear is understood not simply as an individual emotion but as what De Genova (2002) conceptualizes as a condition of deportability—a legally produced and socially sustained state of vulnerability in which the constant possibility of expulsion organizes daily life and relationships. This framing situates fear as a structural and relational experience rather than a psychological one, shaping how undocumented Latina mothers live, parent, and communicate emotions within their families. In households where fear is constant due to immigration enforcement threats, children often absorb this fear through their mothers’ behaviors and emotional states. Even when undocumented status is not openly discussed, children notice changes in tone, body language, and routine behaviors that signal danger. This can lead to anxiety, emotional confusion, or role reversal, where children take on adult responsibilities or worry about protecting their parents.

Feminist motherhood theory and emotion socialization theory together provided a framework that guided this study from analysis to interpretation. Feminist motherhood theory directed attention to the gendered and structural dimensions of caregiving among undocumented Latina mothers who must simultaneously provide, protect, and nurture in a context where they lack legal rights and social safety nets. Whereas feminist theory helps explain the broader social and political pressures undocumented mothers face, emotion socialization theory informed the analytic focus on how fear, once internalized by mothers navigating such precarity, is expressed or managed in daily interactions with their children. This combined approach helps illuminate how structural oppression influences both caregiving practices and emotional development, explaining how fear is not only experienced by mothers but also felt, absorbed, and carried by their children in both conscious and unconscious ways.

Methods

Study Design

This study is a secondary qualitative analysis based on interview data collected for a prior study examining guardianship decision-making among undocumented parents in the United States (Rafieifar et al., 2025a). Secondary analysis of qualitative data involves using existing data that were originally collected for a different purpose to explore new or related research questions that were not examined in the original studies (Ruggiano & Perry, 2019; Tate & Happ, 2018). In this case, I re-analyzed a subset of the original dataset, focusing specifically on undocumented Latina mothers who were raising children without their husbands—either as single parents or because their partners had been deported. The goal was to explore how these women experienced immigration-related fear and how they perceived that fear being transmitted to their U.S. citizen children. Here, a single mother refers to a woman parenting without a partner due to varied circumstances, including deportation, domestic violence, abandonment, or separation. This reflects how single motherhood among undocumented women often results from structural and interpersonal loss rather than individual choice.

I used an auto-data approach (Tate & Happ, 2018), in which the original research team re-engages with its own dataset to examine a new analytic focus. This strategy offered both methodological and ethical advantages. Some researchers have noted that conducting secondary qualitative data analysis helps reduce the burden on vulnerable populations who already face stress and instability, such as undocumented families (Ruggiano & Perry, 2019). Reusing data from in-depth interviews already conducted allowed me to avoid re-recruiting participants for similar conversations while still deepening our understanding of the data.

Original Study and Dataset

The original study recruited 27 undocumented parents through a long-standing community-based organization in South Florida, a region with one of the largest immigrant populations in the United States. This organization provides humanitarian, legal, and advocacy support to undocumented and mixed-status families and is located in an agricultural area frequently targeted by immigration enforcement near one of the state's major detention centers. Because of its deep trust within the community, it served as a critical bridge between the research team and potential participants. Staff introduced the study during their regular outreach activities, such as food and supply distributions, and referred interested parents to the research team for virtual interviews. This partnership ensured participant safety, minimized exposure risk, and allowed access to a population that would otherwise be difficult to reach due to fear of detection and deportation.

The original project focused on guardianship planning among undocumented parents who had identified or appointed potential guardians for their U.S. citizen children. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in Spanish between October 2020 and September 2021 by a bilingual master's-level social worker trained in qualitative interviewing. The interview guide included open-ended questions about daily life as an undocumented parent, the perceived risks of family separation, and the process of selecting a guardian and communicating that decision with their children. Each interview lasted approximately 60 min, was audio recorded, and professionally transcribed and translated following a quality-check process by independent bilingual reviewers. Ethical approval was obtained from [INSTITUTION MASKED], and all participants gave verbal informed consent. Pseudonyms were selected by participants prior to interviews to further protect confidentiality, and all data were securely stored on encrypted, password-protected devices. Details on the data collection process, including recruitment and interview procedures, are explained at length in the prior publication (Rafieifar & Beaulaurier, 2025).

Analytic Focus and Strategies for Rigor

To ensure rigor in this secondary analysis, I revisited the data with a fresh analytical lens and recoded the interviews using an open coding approach. While the original study used grounded theory methodology, for this project, I intentionally bracketed previous themes and focused on the emergence of new patterns (Tufford & Newman, 2012). To bracket the influence of the original findings, I began by reviewing the prior study's codebook and thematic framework, which had an entirely different analytic focus. That analysis emphasized logistical and relational planning for possible family separation rather than the emotional dimensions of fear. For this study, I documented those earlier themes in a reflexive memo and intentionally set them aside before beginning new open coding. Each transcript was re-read as if for the first time, focusing exclusively on how fear and emotion were described and perceived within family interactions. I maintained ongoing reflexive memos to monitor when previous interpretations might influence this analysis, ensuring analytic independence and enhancing rigor.

To support the trustworthiness of the analysis, I sought input from both a community collaborator and a gender studies expert. The community collaborator has lived and worked in the study community for over 30 years and has extensive knowledge of the local immigrant context. Her feedback helped ensure that my interpretations remained grounded in community realities and that I did not over-interpret participants’ accounts. The gender studies expert provided theoretical feedback to confirm that my interpretations were consistent with feminist and gender-based frameworks and conceptually aligned with scholarship on motherhood and emotion regulation. These triangulation efforts (Patton, 1999) strengthened the credibility of the findings and enhanced the coherence between theoretical framing and lived experience.

Research Question

For this secondary study, the research question is: How do undocumented single Latina mothers experience immigration-related fear, and how do they perceive this fear being transmitted to their U.S. citizen children?

Data Analysis

The current study used reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006, 2023), and was theoretically informed by feminist motherhood theory and emotion socialization theory. These frameworks guided the selection of the data subset, the development of the coding focus, and the interpretation of emerging themes. Feminist motherhood theory helped center the structural and gendered dimensions of caregiving, while emotion socialization theory informed attention to the ways fear and emotional regulation were expressed within parent–child interactions.

The focus on fear transmission was not predetermined but emerged organically from the data. During the original study, participants’ descriptions of fear were so strong and recurrent that they stood out as a defining feature of their narratives, even though the original analysis centered on guardianship decision-making. In revisiting the dataset, I recognized that fear—especially the way it was experienced and perceived by children—demanded focused exploration. This analytic direction, therefore, reflects both the salience of fear in the participants’ lived experiences and my commitment to allowing the data, rather than prior assumptions, to guide the secondary analysis.

I conducted a reflexive thematic analysis, following Braun and Clarke's (2006, 2023) six-phase approach, to explore how parents understand and describe fear as both a personal and relational experience. Transcripts were imported into ATLAS.ti and read multiple times to ensure deep familiarity with the data. Coding was conducted inductively, guided by close attention to how parents narrated their own emotional states, behavioral adaptations to enforcement risk, and perceptions of their children's responses to those behaviors. Emotional states were identified when participants either explicitly named feelings such as fear, worry, or sadness, or described behaviors and circumstances that conveyed emotional distress—such as hypervigilance, sleeplessness, crying, or avoiding public spaces. Both direct and indirect cues (metaphors, tone, and embodied reactions) were coded as emotional content to capture the range of how fear was experienced and expressed.

In the initial phase, open codes (Charmaz, 2006) were created to capture concrete descriptions of fear, stress, and mothers’ coping behaviors, as well as subtle or implied references to emotional transmission. Codes were iteratively refined as new patterns emerged across transcripts. Constant comparison methods were used to maintain consistency and identify variation across interviews (Dye et al., 2000). Particular attention was paid to metaphors, repeated phrases, and emotionally charged language that signaled shared meanings around fear and safety. Following initial coding, I clustered related codes into potential themes, focusing on how fear was embodied in daily routines and how children, even without direct disclosure, were perceived to pick up on that fear. I used memo writing throughout the process to track theoretical insights, contradictions, and analytic decisions. During the theme development stage, I returned to the data to ensure that each theme was grounded in participants’ narratives and reflected the diversity of experiences across the sample. Negative case analysis was conducted to refine theme boundaries and strengthen credibility (Patton, 1999).

Throughout the analytic process, I maintained reflexive memos to document decisions and reflections about how my background shaped my interpretation. As the principal investigator of the original study and an immigrant, I approached the data with both familiarity and caution—recognizing my proximity to the topic and striving to strike a balance between empathy and analytic distance. These reflections informed how I identified and interpreted themes around fear, caregiving, and emotional regulation. Because I was the sole coder, I followed Lincoln and Guba's (1985) guidance for establishing credibility, dependability, and confirmability in qualitative research. I maintained an audit trail that documented coding changes, analytic memos, and interpretive notes at each stage, allowing me to revisit and justify decisions as themes developed. I reread transcripts after each coding cycle to assess the consistency of theme boundaries and ensure interpretations reflected the data. When discussing preliminary findings with a community collaborator and a gender studies colleague, I compared their feedback with my memos to refine the phrasing of themes and reduce the influence of personal bias. These iterative checks collectively strengthened the transparency and trustworthiness of the analysis.

Results

Eighteen women were recruited between October 2020 and September 2021, varying in age (25–49, median 37), country of origin, and experiences with immigration enforcement. Most were from Guatemala (8), followed by Mexico (7), El Salvador (2), and Nicaragua (1). On average, participants had three children. Education levels were low: 12 had no or only primary education, three had middle school, and three had completed high school. Those employed held low-wage, physically demanding jobs—mainly farm work (9), construction and housekeeping (3 each), cleaning (2), and restaurant work (1). All participants were women living without their husbands, and 14 had experienced immigration enforcement, including 10 whose husbands were deported.

This secondary analysis revealed how fear shaped undocumented Latina mothers’ lives in deeply personal and relational ways, especially in their roles as sole caregivers. The findings are organized around four themes : (1) living in a constant state of fear (2) fear shaping daily behavior and parenting decisions (3) fear transmission and its impact on children (4) carrying fear alone in the absence of partners

Living in a Constant State of Fear

The majority of mothers described their daily lives as overshadowed by fear—a pervasive and unrelenting anxiety that shaped even the most basic routines. This fear was not a distant worry but a constant presence that dictated how they moved, worked, and parented. Women spoke about waking each day with dread, hyperaware that a traffic stop, a routine outing, or even seeking healthcare could lead to detention or family separation. One woman from Guatemala said, “We live in insecurity here, because anything can happen, or the police can get you. You leave home but don’t know if you’ll come back.” Mothers frequently described the stress of driving without a license, altering their routes to avoid detection, and feeling forced to break the law in order to survive. A Mexican woman said, “I go out with my car, and I don’t have a license… I do not know if I will return home or maybe they take me to jail.” Even those who had secured legal papers expressed lingering fear and distrust, concerned that protections could be revoked or that enforcement could still affect their families. A woman from El Salvador said, “Even when you have papers, life can be hard. Because you are always in fear that they could revoke your paper.”

This constant vigilance was emotionally draining. Some women said they avoided public spaces, limited their children's activities, or stayed home altogether. They described this as a state of “emotional survival,” where trust was hard to extend beyond their immediate circles. “We’d feel worried that we’d get stopped by the police. We’d feel fear… What's healthy is to live in peace. But every day we felt fear,” said another woman from El Salvador.

For many, this fear was rooted in direct or indirect experiences with immigration enforcement. Nearly all participants knew someone, often a partner, who had been deported or detained. These experiences made the risk feel immediate and deeply personal. Another Guatemalan woman said, “They can grab you at any moment and send you back. Then your children will be left behind. It is very difficult.” So, for most of them, the worst fear was to get separated from their children. One Guatemalan mother said, “The hardest part is the fear of whether we will come home that night.”

Fear of raids, deportation, and losing their children overshadowed their hopes for the future. Mothers worried not only about their own safety but about the emotional and physical well-being of their children if they were suddenly separated. This deep-rooted, chronic fear was not only a response to past experiences but a way of life shaped by structural exclusion. It underscored how immigration enforcement shaped their everyday realities and fueled the urgency to plan for their children's care in case of separation. While fear was pervasive, it did not manifest uniformly. Some mothers described fear as paralyzing and exhausting, whereas others framed it as something they learned to live with or actively resisted. A few turned to faith or community support as a way to sustain hope. One participant said, “At first [post migration], I used to cry a lot. Now, it's like we live with fear—it becomes part of life. You just keep going.” Another shared, “I tell myself not to be afraid, because I have my children. I need to show them strength.” For others, fear was mixed with gratitude for safety and the chance to rebuild, even under difficult conditions. As a Guatemalan participant reflected, “Sometimes I am scared because anything can happen here, but I also thank God because at least we are safe now. I can work, and my children go to school. We have what we need, even if it's not much. Life is not easy, but I am grateful.”

While fear was a shared reality, its sources and meanings varied across women's lives. For some, it was tied primarily to immigration enforcement and the threat of family separation. For others, fear was intertwined with memories of past trauma, violence, persecution, or instability that had already marked their lives before migration. These overlapping forms of fear deepened their vulnerability and influenced how they experienced safety, trust, and control in their new environment. For mothers who had survived violence, fear carried additional meanings. One Mexican woman described being threatened by her former partner's family: “They said I wasn’t capable, that I was illegal, that they would take them. I was so scared I hid with my kids.” Another woman from Guatemala explained how she remained alert even after escaping her abusive husband: “He found out where we were staying and wanted to kill me. I had just arrived here… I went to the immigration office and asked to change my address because I was afraid.”

Fear Shaping Daily Behavior and Parenting Decisions

Fear strongly influenced how mothers navigated their daily lives and shaped their parenting decisions. It affected how they provided socialization opportunities for their children. Many avoided outings, playdates, or events because they feared driving and possible detection. As a result, some children were excluded from typical childhood activities. One Mexican mother shared, “My kids love Disney and it's just a few hours away, but I can’t take the risk… it's not safe driving… and there are many other things limiting my kids.” This fear also led mothers to repeat strict instructions to their children: not to trust anyone and never to share personal information, especially about their family or immigration status. “I always tell them, ‘You can’t trust no one. You don’t talk about us.’… We’re always careful, careful.”

Mothers also worked hard to present themselves as good and honest in their children's eyes, trying to undo any criminalized image that might arise from enforcement encounters. One Guatemalan woman said, “When my girls saw my husband handcuffed, they cried… I told them their dad hadn’t done anything wrong. They were taking him because we don’t have papers.” Parenting strategies were deeply shaped by this fear. Many mothers said they parented more cautiously, avoiding yelling or harsh discipline so as not to be misunderstood or judged. “I stay calm, even when I’m upset. I’m careful with how I parent because I don’t want anyone to misunderstand or judge me.” Another said, “I try to keep the peace at home… I hold it in and just focus on keeping things calm for the kids.”

One Nicaraguan mother shared that her children sometimes spoke to her disrespectfully, and she felt they didn’t fully understand what she had been through. In response, she used storytelling to help them see her sacrifices.

They spoke badly. Then it becomes more difficult for them to understand me. But several times, I had to explain. I told them how I came—walking, bus, train, boat on the river. They asked, ‘Did you come by plane?’ I said, ‘No, I came like that.’ I explained step by step, not just once. Now they understand the journey was very difficult.

These behaviors stemmed not only from fear of enforcement but also from a desire to protect their children emotionally. For many, silence, emotional control, and limited exposure became necessary tools in keeping their families safe and their children emotionally protected.

Fear Transmission and Its Impact on Children

Despite mothers’ efforts to shield their children, fear was often passed down, sometimes directly, and other times through subtle cues. Children absorbed emotional signals, even when immigration status was not openly discussed. Mothers described their children becoming more anxious, withdrawn, or confused, behaviors they linked to the stress and instability of their family's situation. As one mother said, “Well… it is not something you can hide. They just know it.”

Some children witnessed immigration enforcement firsthand, such as the arrest or deportation of a parent. One Guatemalan mother shared how her daughter continued to struggle emotionally after seeing her father taken: “It emotionally upsets her because she always remembers when her dad was deported… What scares her now is that I might go out and get separated from them forever.” Another woman spoke about her children's ongoing fear that she, too, could be taken:

They feel bad, and it scares them. It scares them because there are many people who do not return because the police ask for their documents and go to jail because they do not have documents… many cases have been seen. So they always have that in their heads. All three of them.

Others learned fear from their mothers’ behavior. A Mexican participant explained how her children sensed danger through her reactions while driving: “They’ve seen the fear in my eyes. I tell them to sit up straight when there's a police car behind us. They know my fear is being separated from them.” Still, several mothers emphasized that they tried to counter that fear through reassurance and faith, encouraging their children to “trust in God,” focus on school, and “keep moving forward.” In their words, hope and caution existed side by side.

This fear also led children to ask difficult questions. A few began noticing when their mothers avoided things like applying for store credit cards, prompting deeper conversations about status and rights: “They asked why I never signed up for store discounts. I had to explain that I wasn’t born here, but they were, and they have all their rights.” Some children expressed sadness that their mothers weren’t born in the U.S. and feared what that meant for their safety: “They said, ‘Mommy, we wish you were born here like us. Then we wouldn’t have to worry.’ I didn’t know what to say.”

In some cases, fear was heightened by direct encounters with discrimination or mistreatment. Children witnessed traumatic events, like their fathers being arrested during traffic stops or their mothers being treated unfairly in public. A Mexican mother described how police took her husband away in front of the children for a minor seatbelt violation, labeling him a “public danger.” The experience left her children fearful of the police.

Even everyday moments carried emotional weight. One woman from Mexico described feeling humiliated at the post office for using a Mexican ID, an incident witnessed by her child:

The lady asked for ID. I showed my Mexican license, and she said, ‘No, you can’t use that. We’re American—you don’t use an ID from your country.’ I didn’t argue, but when I got to my car, I cried. My child saw it all.

These experiences demonstrate how fear was not only internalized by mothers but absorbed and mirrored by their children, shaping their understanding of the world, their sense of safety, and their emotional well-being. Beyond deportation itself, these moments also reflected how racialized and ethnic othering shaped mothers’ daily lives. Participants’ fear was reinforced not only by immigration enforcement but by the humiliation, surveillance, and exclusion they experienced as Latina women visibly marked as “foreign.”

Carrying Fear Alone in the Absence of Partners

For many of the women in this study, fear was a solitary burden. Their roles as mothers and protectors were shaped not only by immigration-related threats but also by the reality that they were navigating these challenges without the presence or support of a partner. Some had partners who had been deported or detained. Others were single mothers due to abuse, separation, or threats in their home countries. This absence placed the full weight of caregiving, decision-making, and emotional labor on the mothers alone. One Mexican woman said, “I’m the only one they have. Their dad is not here, so I have to be strong even when I don’t feel like it.”

Participants described how this responsibility intensified their stress. They spoke of the emotional toll of appearing calm and composed for their children, even while struggling themselves. Everyday decisions, such as whether to go to work, seek help, or attend a school meeting, were shaped by fear and made harder by the absence of a partner to share the consequences. One Guatemalan woman said, “I don’t sleep much. I think about everything. What if something happens to me? Who will take care of them?”

Several women shared that the deportation of their husbands marked a turning point in their lives. One woman from Mexico reflected on the years since her husband's deportation:

Right now, I am alone because my husband was deported about six years ago. So I am left alone with three children. But I have taken them forward anyway. With my husband deported, it really wasn’t easy for me. I was a single working mother.

She added that, despite her hardship, she also continued to support her aging parents back home: “That's why I came here, for a better future, to help my parents so they don’t always have to work so hard. I send them every month, even if it's just a little.” Another woman, described how her husband's deportation, combined with threats from her children's grandfather, forced her to start over in fear:

One day, immigration came to the front door and arrested my husband. That's when a new life began for me. One really suffers when they get separated from their spouse, especially when there are children. I wasn’t the only one affected. My children were traumatized too. I came here because of fear. I faced many personal threats from the children's grandfather. We were never safe in our own home.

Some women had their abusive partners deported but were left to carry every financial and caregiving responsibility. A woman, from Guatemala, described how her violent husband was deported after she called the police:

When he was healthy, he helped with the rent. He cooked. He provided. But when he drank, he had a different character. I told the police not to deport him and to give him therapy instead, but they did. Now that he's gone, I have to pay the rent and everything alone. It is very difficult because the children are very young.

These stories reveal how undocumented status can make existing vulnerabilities even worse. Yet they also show how women persist in the face of fear and constraint, finding strength in their children, their faith, and their capacity to endure. The women in this study were not only dealing with the fear of immigration enforcement but also the trauma of domestic violence, sexual violence, and the emotional strain of raising children alone. Some also faced emotional threats from extended family members, such as in-laws who used their undocumented status against them. “They said I wasn’t capable. That I was illegal. That they would take them. I was so scared I hid with my kids.” Another woman said, “I ran from him because he beat me. But I was also afraid to go to the police. I didn’t have papers, and I had my baby.”

Discussion

Parenting under any condition involves sacrifice and emotional labor, but undocumented mothers navigating life without a partner face an especially heavy burden. This study sheds light on the gendered and deeply intersectional experiences of undocumented Latina mothers raising U.S. citizen children while managing fear, instability, and often isolation. Feminist motherhood theory helps frame these realities not simply as private family matters but as outcomes of broader structural inequalities. It underscores that mothering for undocumented Latina women occurs within overlapping systems of surveillance and labor inequality, where they remain responsible for both economic survival and emotional care despite lacking legal protection. Consistent with Latina feminist analyses of motherhood and legal violence (e.g., Abrego & Schmalzbauer, 2018; Carranza, 2011), these findings reveal how the conditions of “illegality” and social exclusion organize emotional life, requiring mothers to continually manage fear while sustaining family functioning. Mothering, in this context, is not merely about daily caregiving but about navigating a constant state of surveillance, exclusion, and uncertainty. Emotion socialization theory complements this view by explaining how fear, once internalized through these structural pressures, is communicated within the family through routine interactions and emotional cues. Similar to Carranza's (2011) work with Salvadoran mothers who carried trauma across borders, participants’ caregiving was marked by vigilance, emotional restraint, and a constant effort to protect children from both external and internal threats. These women are raising children in a society where their presence is criminalized and their role as mothers is persistently undermined by legal and institutional barriers.

Legal vulnerability shaped every aspect of these women's lives—not only through deportation itself but through its persistent anticipation. De Genova (2002) refers to this as “deportability,” a condition in which the possibility of removal becomes a daily form of control. Deportability does not require active enforcement to be effective; its power lies in its constant potential. For undocumented mothers, this means parenting under a shadow of instability, where each interaction with a school, clinic, or neighbor could become a point of exposure. Their fear is not irrational but structured by policy and sustained by enforcement systems that normalize exclusion. This exclusion was also racialized. The mothers’ experiences illustrate how deportability operates through racial and ethnic othering, where Latina women are marked as “foreign” and presumed undeserving of rights or safety. Their daily encounters—whether being dismissed in public spaces or witnessing their partners criminalized for minor infractions—reflect how race, language, and class intersect to sustain systems of suspicion and exclusion. De Genova's (2002) concept of deportability cannot be separated from these racialized dynamics, as the power of enforcement lies not only in the threat of removal but in the constant social reminder of unbelonging. For participants, this sense of otherness reinforced vigilance and emotional self-discipline, shaping both how they moved through the world and how they parented under the gaze of a society that rendered them simultaneously invisible and hyper-visible. As Abrego and Schmalzbauer (2018) observes, illegality extends beyond legal status to shape emotional life itself; mothers discipline their emotions as part of their daily survival. The women in this study similarly practiced emotional discipline, suppressing worry, regulating tone, and presenting calm, to preserve a sense of normalcy for their children while living with the chronic threat of removal.

Deportability is experienced through distinctly gendered expectations. As Belliveau (2011) observes, immigrant mothers are held to conflicting standards—expected to nurture yet criminalized as “illegal.” For single mothers, these contradictions intensify: they must serve as protectors and emotional anchors while managing their own fear. Their restraint reflects culturally grounded ideals of self-sacrifice and endurance described in Latina feminist and social work scholarship on familismo and marianismo (Carranza, 2007; Da Silva et al., 2021; Mendez-Luck & Anthony, 2016). Mothering in this context occurs at the margins—shaped by scarcity and surveillance but sustained through adaptation and faith. Participants’ narratives align with feminist scholarship framing motherhood as both oppression and resistance (Abrego & Schmalzbauer, 2018; Carranza, 2011; O’Reilly, 2008). While fear and exclusion defined their daily lives, these women also demonstrated profound resilience rooted in love, purpose, and spirituality. Their determination to “move forward,” as many described, reflects what Abrego & Schmalzbauer (2018) calls “everyday acts of resistance,” sustaining family life under systems designed to erode it. This endurance, what Latina feminists describe as aguante, captures their ability to persist for their children despite exhaustion and injustice. Through this lens, fear is not only a constraint but also a catalyst for strength, revealing undocumented Latina motherhood as both a site of struggle and a testament to resilience. These dynamics make it clear that undocumented mothering is a deeply political experience. It is shaped by policies that limit access to healthcare, childcare, and social safety nets, and by a legal framework that defines their very existence as a violation. The intersection of immigration status, gender, and single parenthood reveals how structural inequality reaches into the most personal aspects of life. These mothers are not just excluded from public resources; they are structurally positioned to be isolated, monitored, and disempowered within their own families and communities.

The findings reveal that fear is not only a structural pressure but also an emotional reality that circulates within mixed-status families. Many mothers described doing their best to shield their children from this fear, yet it was still absorbed by their children through everyday interactions. Fear was transmitted through silence, emotional withholding, changes in routine, and restrictions on behavior. Mothers avoided contact with institutions, limited their children's activities, and created strict rules about what could be said at school or in public. These parenting decisions, while protective in intent, created a climate of anxiety that children noticed and responded to. Emotion socialization theory explains how children learn about emotion through both direct communication and indirect modeling. In this case, even in the absence of open conversations, children internalized the fear they witnessed. This aligns with trauma-informed research showing that maternal vigilance and emotional restraint can shape how children experience family stress (Carranza, 2011; Escobar Olivo et al., 2023).

Some mothers delayed disclosing their immigration status to protect younger children from distress, while others opted to explain it gradually. Many spoke about children overhearing conversations or asking questions after witnessing their mothers’ reactions to sirens, law enforcement, or even a knock at the door. Such moments illustrate how emotion socialization occurs under structural constraint: mothers continually weigh honesty against protection, teaching children to manage anxiety in environments of chronic uncertainty. The meta-synthesis by Rafieifar and colleagues (2025b) found that children in mixed-status families often become aware of their parents’ undocumented status not through planned conversations but through fragmented exposure to fear and tension. Over time, this awareness shaped their emotional development and sense of security.

Many participants had survived or witnessed violence—before, during, or after migration—which deepened their fear and shaped their hypervigilant parenting. These lived histories informed how they perceived danger and protected their children, revealing how fear operates along a continuum of structural and interpersonal violence (Carranza, 2011; Abrego & Schmalzbauer, 2018). Because many lacked safe outlets to express distress, they relied on silence and composure to preserve their children's sense of stability. Yet this restraint often created emotional distance that children sensed, echoing Adams and Campbell's (2012) description of undocumented mothering as a constant negotiation between safety and presence. The absence of a partner further intensified the emotional demands. Participants frequently described themselves as the sole emotional anchor for their children. They could not share the burden with anyone else, and many felt the need to perform strength, even when they were internally struggling, aware that their children still sensed their fear. These moments show how children's emotional landscapes are shaped not only by what mothers say but by what they hold back.

The combination of gender, legal status, poverty, trauma history, and cultural expectations shaped how these mothers navigated emotional communication. Many were isolated from support networks due to language barriers or fear of exposure. Some expressed frustration that their children, more acculturated and legally secure, sometimes misunderstood or resisted their cautious parenting style. In a few cases, children used their citizenship status to assert power in conflicts, exposing how immigration policy and legal categories influence even the most intimate family relationships.

These experiences must also be understood within the broader socio-political context in which participants lived and raised their children. The interviews took place in Florida between 2020 and 2021, during the final year of the Trump administration—a period marked by harsh immigration rhetoric and close collaboration between local law enforcement and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Even when federal enforcement slowed during the early months of the pandemic, participants continued to feel at risk due to visible policing, workplace raids, and local-level cooperation that blurred the line between everyday law enforcement and immigration control. In this context, fear was not simply an emotional response but a rational adaptation to a political environment that criminalized their presence and made separation from their children a constant possibility.

Implications

These findings have important implications for social work and allied fields. The women's experiences reveal how immigration-related fear operates not only as a personal and emotional condition but as a structural challenge that requires coordinated community and social service responses. Social workers and mental health providers must be trained to recognize the unique challenges faced by undocumented single mothers. Trauma-informed care should be adapted to address chronic fear, legal precarity, and the burden of emotional suppression (Bartlett & Ramos-Olazagasti, 2018). Practitioners should be especially sensitive to the ways fear is communicated within families and support parents in developing age-appropriate strategies to talk with their children about their realities. Services must be linguistically accessible and culturally relevant, and efforts to build trust are essential.

As described by several participants, experiences of domestic or intimate partner violence intensified their sense of fear and isolation. Building on these narratives, trauma-informed care for this population must address not only the threat of immigration enforcement but also the compounded trauma of violence and displacement. Although some may qualify for immigration relief through programs like the U visa or the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), many participants were unaware of these legal options, reflecting barriers such as social isolation, time constraints, and lack of access to trusted information. Practitioners should therefore collaborate with immigrant-serving community-based organizations (CBOs) that already provide legal orientation and support for undocumented families.

CBOs are especially well positioned to bridge these information gaps because they are trusted, locally grounded, and less bureaucratic than larger nonprofits (Cordero-Guzmán, 2005; Kirsch et al., 2023; Vu et al., 2017). Participants in this study described relying on informal networks and avoiding formal systems out of fear of exposure, underscoring the importance of strengthening partnerships with CBOs that can offer safe spaces for information-sharing, peer support, and guidance. Collaborations between social workers and community advocates can also help transform mothers’ existing strategies of vigilance into proactive preparedness that reduces anxiety and strengthens family stability.

Helping parents prepare their children for the possibility of separation without inducing panic is another critical task. Social workers can work with mothers to help them regulate their own fear and identify strategies to communicate with their children in honest, developmentally appropriate ways (Chavez-Dueñas & Adames, 2022; Kam et al., 2020). This not only reduces the emotional burden on the parent but also prevents children from absorbing only anxiety. With the right support, children can also receive reassurance, clarity, and tools to build resilience.

Schools, teachers, and healthcare providers must also be aware of the structural barriers that prevent these mothers from fully engaging in their children's education and health care. As mothers in this study emphasized, their absence at school events or delays in communication often stem from inflexible jobs, transportation limits, or fear of exposure—not from a lack of care or interest. Training school and health professionals to recognize these constraints can foster more compassionate and equitable relationships with families. These findings are especially relevant given the ongoing wave of anti-immigrant federal and state policies that continue to heighten fear and restrict access to essential services for undocumented families.

Finally, these implications must be situated within a broader anti-racist framework. Fear and exclusion among undocumented Latina mothers are not only the result of individual or family vulnerabilities but also of racialized immigration enforcement and discriminatory institutional practices. Social workers and allied professionals have an ethical responsibility to challenge these systemic inequities through advocacy for inclusive policies, equitable access to public services, and reforms that decouple local policing from immigration control. Addressing structural racism at the policy level is essential to ensuring that trauma-informed and family-centered interventions are sustainable and just.

Limitations

This study has several limitations. As a secondary qualitative analysis, it did not allow for follow-up interviews or participant validation of emerging themes. Because the data were originally collected for another purpose, some aspects of mothers’ emotional experiences may not have been fully explored. Additionally, while some participants clearly described becoming single mothers due to deportation or domestic violence, others did not specify the circumstances leading to their single parenthood. Since follow-up questions were not possible, contextual details on the diverse pathways to single parenthood were limited in the original dataset. Participants were recruited through a single trusted community-based organization, which may limit transferability to undocumented mothers who are more isolated or disconnected from support networks. Data were also collected between 2020 and 2021, during the pandemic and a period of heightened immigration enforcement, which may have intensified the sense of fear described by participants. However, given the current sociopolitical climate and the resurgence of aggressive enforcement actions in several states, the findings remain highly relevant for understanding how such policies continue to shape undocumented mothers and their children’ daily lives and emotional well-being. As the sole coder, I was deeply engaged with the data, which strengthened analytic consistency but also introduced the risk of bias. To reduce this, I kept detailed reflexive memos and sought feedback from a community member familiar with the participants and a gender studies expert who helped refine the interpretation. Despite these limitations, the study offers important strengths. It draws on rich, contextual narratives from an understudied population and uses a strong theoretical lens to explain how structural inequality and caregiving intersect in undocumented mothers’ lives. The partnership with a trusted community organization and the reflexive analytic process add credibility and practical value to the findings.

Conclusion

Undocumented single mothers raising U.S. citizen children navigate a daily reality shaped by fear, legal vulnerability, and limited access to support. This study highlights how structural inequalities become deeply personal, shaping both parenting practices and the emotional lives of families. While these mothers work to shield their children from the harshest effects of immigration enforcement, their fear is often passed on in subtle but powerful ways. The findings emphasize the need for trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and accessible support systems that meet families where they are. Addressing this issue requires coordinated efforts across social services, schools, and community-based organizations to ensure that families are not only surviving but also receiving the tools to plan, connect, and heal.