Migrants’ mental health in Chicago a looming crisis

Jorge Rubiano is a haunted man. 

For months, he has tried to find work. For months, he has slept in a shelter, worrying about his wife and mother left behind in Colombia: Are they safe? Did I make the right decision?

Rubiano, 43, is haunted by his journey to Chicago, during which he says he was kidnapped and held for a month before escaping. 

He says he left his country because the government threatened his life and that there were nights when all he could do was cry in anger. He recalls a call with his wife in Colombia cut short when the bus she was riding on was being robbed. 

“I’m still in between two dangers,” Rubiano said in Spanish. “If I return, it’s very possible they kill me, and if I stay, I don’t know what can happen here.” 

More than 25,000 migrants and asylum-seekers have arrived mostly from South and Central America since late August 2022. They are fleeing the collapse of their economies and as one social worker puts it, “misery.” Many came to Chicago on a bus from Texas, where Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said Chicago and other sanctuary cities that embrace immigrants would provide much-needed relief “to our small, overrun border towns.” The buses haven’t stopped since.

WBEZ interviewed more than 30 people to understand the emotional toll migrants face, the army of helpers who are filling in the gaps of a frayed mental health system and what’s at stake. Some of those helpers’ efforts are catching the attention of leaders in other big cities where migrants are heading.

For many, the journey to Chicago was harrowing. A young girl who fell into a river as her pregnant mother struggled to hold onto her hand so the current wouldn’t whisk her away. Women who paid to move on from country to country not just in cash, but with their bodies. People who walked over the dead in the jungle and were left wracked with guilt over the sick and injured left behind. 

Their stories have unfolded across Chicago in the quiet space of a therapist’s office, at a healing circle in the back of a storefront, with a nurse at a folding table propped up outside a police station so relatives inside couldn’t hear. 

Others, like Rubiano, keep their trauma and pain to themselves. For many migrants, taking care of their mental health might not be a priority — if they even want to. 

“They’re in survival mode,” said Sharon Davila, a school-based social worker who has screened migrant families. “They need their basic needs met. The No. 1 thing is they’re looking for jobs.”

Just getting in front of a therapist or a social worker can be difficult for even the most savvy and persistent. With a shortage of mental health workers, waiting lists for an appointment can be months long.

Layer on being new to this country, speaking a different language, having no health insurance and trying to find a mental health provider who understands your culture. Getting help can seem impossible. And that’s if you know help exists.

“Their stories are starting to unravel,” said Susie Moya, a therapist in Pilsen who has worked with migrants.

She worries about a brewing mental health crisis. 

“Right now, it’s on the back burner,” Moya said. “But I’m thinking a year from now, when these families are settled in, who is going to be providing that support?” 

On a Monday night in November in the back room of an insurance agency on the Southwest Side, about 20 migrants gather chairs in a circle. They take turns describing how they feel on a scale of one to 10 as social worker Veronica Sanchez encourages them to share why.

Warm homemade chicken soup and arepas await them for dinner. 

A woman says her husband got deported. She’s heartbroken that she left her children behind. A man says he worked several days that week but never got paid. Another says he is grateful to God for bringing him to America, but he misses his mom, dad and brothers.

Finding work and reuniting with family is important, Sanchez tells them. But it’s their mental health she’s concerned about.

“Maybe we have answers, maybe we don’t,” Sanchez says in Spanish. “But when you open up a safe space where you can share your sorrows … you don’t feel so alone.”

She encourages people to visualize their future when they would be able to look back and remember this difficult moment. 

Sanchez understands their desperation. She comes from a long line of pottery-makers in Mexico. When the economy crashed, her father left to work in Cicero. She was 4 years old. She didn’t see her father for almost seven years. 

Sanchez would dream of her father sitting by a pine tree covered in snow, a reflection of a photograph he mailed to the family. 

Eventually, her father was able to bring his family to Chicago. 

“When I was talking to them, it really came from the heart,” Sanchez said of the healing circle. “I was seeing the migrants’ faces, that they were so scared.” 

Informal support groups like the one Sanchez led have popped up around the city in shelters, storefronts, churches and schools. They’re often driven by volunteers and mental health providers who see the grief and fear in the migrants they’re helping — or they want to prevent it. 

In some cases, though, the relief has been only temporary, dismantling as helpers burn out, migrants prioritize other needs, or they move. 

“When we think about what the need for mental health services truly is [among migrants], I don’t think we even can begin to even fully understand the depth and scope of that,” said Steph Willding, chief executive officer of CommunityHealth, a free health center that has been treating migrants. “Individuals are still in their trauma.”  

Some volunteers and mental health providers point out that not every migrant might be experiencing severe trauma.

But for many others, trauma can have a lasting impact. It can change the wiring in the brain and make a person more vulnerable to depression and anxiety. Even daily or ongoing stressors can be what Chicago psychologist Laura Pappa calls “little t” trauma, like not feeling welcomed right away.

Chronic stress can change a person’s physical health, potentially affecting a child’s growth and development. Young children can be inconsolable and start to regress, said Rebecca Ford-Paz, a child psychologist at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. As kids grow up, they could have a hard time trusting others. 

“A lot of people come here seeking the American dream, and they realize that that’s not there,” said Pappa, who came to the United States from Argentina in her teens. “A lot of people were not expecting that — how hard it is on this side. I’ve had a lot of parents who’ve come alone and ask themselves: Was it worth it?”

To help kids cope, social worker Amy Hill has children practice deep-breathing exercises to calm themselves when they feel overwhelmed. 

It can be hard to sway migrants even to seek help, though. There’s a stigma that’s especially prevalent in Latino cultures and among Latino men in particular, Pappa said. But she said that’s changing. 

The Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health, University of Chicago’s Crown Family School and Lurie Children’s Center for Childhood Resilience are training hundreds of people who are on the front lines where migrants are staying. They include case managers and shelter supervisors — not people with a medical background. They learn to lead Café y Comunidad charlas — coffee and community talks.

The idea is to help migrants feel less isolated and to try to prevent the most extreme outcomes, such as suicide.

“We have to help people the minute they arrive,” said Aimee Hilado, an assistant U. of C. professor who chairs the coalition. “That’s actually going to promote healing down the line.”

Case manager Albert Ayala has led a charla at a shelter in the former Standard Club downtown. Inside the ballroom of the club, migrants are encouraged to share what’s on their mind. 

There are moments of joy, such as when a woman said she was searching for love, and hands shot up hoping to catch her attention.

Ayala said he’s watched migrants who were scared and shy when they arrived blossom after attending a charla. 

“We try to tell them we’re no different from you,” said Ayala, who is Mexican American. “Your dream is possible.”

Hilado said others in Philadelphia and San Jose have reached out asking how to replicate the effort. 

Rubiano, the migrant from Colombia, tries to keep busy working on his English skills. He’s still looking for a steady job. 

He longs for his family — and for the chance to bring them to be with him once he has a stable life to offer them. 

WBEZ is part of the Mental Health Parity Collaborative, a group of newsrooms that are covering stories on mental health care access and inequities in the United States. The partners include the Carter Center, the Center for Public Integrity and newsrooms in select states across the country. 

Contributing: Manuel Martinez