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In late April, the Urban Health Collaborative, , and hosted an event highlighting research about how immigration enforcement is affecting the public’s health, and to learn from community organizations representing Philadelphia’s diverse immigrant communities. We were joined by advocates and researchers in sessions led by Faculty Member at the UHC, Gabriel Schwartz, and Latino Health Collective founder Ana Martinez-Donate, and in a poster session of UHC-affiliated students presenting cutting-edge research on health and immigration.  

, Associate Professor of Community Health Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, began the day by presenting findings from the 2025 Latino Immigrant National Attitude (LINAS) Study. This study of 1,000 Latino immigrants, of which 46% were naturalized citizens, found that immigration detention efforts in the last year have led many immigrants to avoid seeking needed healthcare. Of this cohort, 13% of immigrants reported avoiding healthcare services. Healthcare avoidance spanned citizenship status, meaning that this climate of fear may be affecting immigrant communities regardless of their documentation.  

We then heard from , Research and Evaluation Project Manager at the and Strategy and Partnerships Manager at the . She presented a she and her team wrote for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts regarding the actions and impacts of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2025. This report found similar results to the LINAS study: “ICE’s presence increased immigrants’ fear of accessing health services, leaving them vulnerable to worsening health conditions.”  

The final expert we heard from was , an internal medicine physician, health economist, and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in the Division of Hospital Medicine. His presentation provided a perspective on healthcare experiences within the immigration detention system itself. Dr. Nwadiuko gave glimpses into the many lapses in detained individuals’ capacity to receive healthcare in the detention system and the situations in detention centers that lead to adverse health outcomes. He recounted the that have been taking place in ICE detention centers—roughly one per week throughout 2026, on average—and that the current expansion of detention centers largely includes warehouses, which have even fewer resources to accommodate healthcare needs. What’s more, in a study that took place from 2020-2022 of detention facilities – which had far fewer stressors on the system than those that exist today – 57% lacked continuous physician coverage for at least one year, and 47% had no continuously employed psychiatry providers for at least one year.  

Afterwards, we had the opportunity to hear from local advocates engaged in work empowering Philadelphia’s immigrant communities. Representatives from , a grassroots community organization of immigrants from Southeast Asian communities, and , another grassroots organization serving Asian communities in the Philadelphia area. They recounted stories of immigrants living in their network receiving removal orders, and the experiences of assisting these immigrants throughout legal proceedings, many of whom are in the U.S. seeking asylum or who came as refugees from US wars in their home countries.  

We capped the day with a poster showcase of work by DSPH students at the intersection of immigration enforcement and health. Among others, we heard from Caroline Kravitz, a PhD candidate at Dornsife, who presented her research with UHC Faculty Members Alina Schnake-Mahl and Brent Langellier, and UHC Doctoral Fellow Lita Lillibridge as co-authors. The work used legal mapping  to develop an extensive dataset of state and local sanctuary and anti-sanctuary policies, providing a valuable tool for empirical research to better quantify how the immigration policy landscape influences health. 
  

Lita Lillibridge was also there, presenting work herself – an upcoming paper she is leading with Kravitz, Schnake-Mahl, and Langellier also as co-authors, investigating U.S. immigrant health through a multilevel policy lens. The study will provide a conceptual framework examining the role of preemption, the supersession of Federal or state immigration policy over a state or city’s own immigration policy (such as a ‘sanctuary city’ policy), and other structural drivers in determining immigrant health outcomes.  

This event highlighted the importance of both scientific research and direct community work in understanding the impacts of immigration enforcement on public health and mitigating its effects.