Session: Borders within, Bridges Beyond: Community Healing and Empowerment across Youth, Family, and Organizations in the Contemporary Immigration Climate (Society for Social Work and Research 30th Annual Conference Anniversary)

Amid an increasingly volatile and restrictive immigration policy landscape - characterized by enhanced enforcement, criminalization, and anti-immigrant rhetoric - immigrant children, youth, and families face intensified threats to their wellbeing, identity, and access to basic resources. These harms have created a "chilling effect," deterring families from seeking services and eroding trust in public institutions. This symposium integrates findings from four qualitative and mixed-methods studies to illuminate how social workers, community-based organizations, and grassroots coalitions are responding to the needs of Latine/x and Central American immigrant communities, and caring for their own teams, across multiple U.S. regions. The symposium will begin with a presentation of findings from a mixed-method study that examines how service providers working with Latine/x immigrant families across California, New Mexico, and Texas navigate shifting rules, regulations, and political contexts. Using interview and survey data, the study offers providers strategies to better serve immigrant communities and informs local and federal policies that support Latine/x immigrant-serving organizations and families. The second presentation will describe results from a qualitative arts-based study that examines how contemporary immigration policies and enforcement policies impact the well-being, identity development, and access to services among newcomer immigrant Latinx youth and families who are disproportionately impacted by restrictive immigration measures. It also explores how community-based agencies are filling in the gaps and providing vital support during these volatile times. The third presentation will share findings from a qualitative study that utilizes case examples to show that community-based organizations have become essential agents of both survival and healing - offering services, advocacy, and spaces for collective care. In a climate of fear, exclusion, and re-traumatization, immigrant-based community organizations are anchoring themselves in care, cultural wisdom, and connection. Our fourth presentation highlights the development, evolution, and impact of the Central American Minors (CAM) Working Group, a grassroots coalition formed in 2014 in response to the dramatic increase of unaccompanied immigrant children, primarily from Central America, settling in the Houston, Texas area. Drawing from practice experience and grounded in collective action and empowerment frameworks, this presentation explores the CAM Working Group as a community-driven model of community coordination and advocacy. This session highlights implications for social work practice, research, and policy which include: embedding healing and relational care as core - not supplemental - components of immigrant-serving systems; equipping providers with tools to navigate trauma and policy shifts; resourcing grassroots coalitions and culturally responsive organizations; and conducting participatory, applied research that centers immigrant voices. Social workers must be equipped to lead and support community-based responses, leveraging critical, anti-oppressive, and trauma-informed frameworks to counter systemic harm and foster collective resilience.