Psychological Impact of IIRAIRA (Title III) on Legal Permanent U.S. Residents and Their Families: A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of ... for the Degree of Doctor of Psychology

Psychological Impact of IIRAIRA (Title III) on Legal Permanent U.S. Residents and Their Families examines the devastating emotional turmoil faced by IIRAIRA-affected families living and working in the United States. This seminal study, whose significance goes beyond its limited scope, describes the altered psychological, social and political reality forced on so many by the law's passage. Documenting IIRAIRA-related psychological and social consequences, the study demonstrates that the ripple effect of traumatic negative life changes imposed by punitive legislation creates depressed single parents, psychologically impaired children and disoriented deportees, with significant effects for the larger society. When the language of a law artificially creates felons, the victims of that law are labeled and treated as culprits. The consequences of IIRAIRA are not created by the actions of those who are its targets, but by the actions of those who legislated the law into existence and those who now carry out its mandates. As long as IIRAIRA exists, we as a society are responsible to those affected by it.