Documenting While Safeguarding: Community-Engaged Research with Immigrant Women during Heightened Immigration Enforcement

Background: Trust between immigrant communities and institutions is frequently compromised by histories of complicity in harm. Yet periods of intensified immigration enforcement also represent critical moments for documentation, not only to capture community harm, but to bear witness to strategies of survival, collective care, and resilience. This study examines how community-based participatory research (CBPR) methods honor that tension, using institutional privilege to create spaces of solidarity while centering immigrant voices and protecting participant safety. Drawing on frameworks of trauma-informed care, feminist epistemology, and resistance to institutional harm, this project elevated the undervalued labor of Latine/x women from mixed-status households as caregivers and community anchors in Southern California. Although these findings emerge from one region, they speak to a broader need: trauma-informed, gender-equitable, and safe documentation practices are essential to any democratic, equity-focused research in the current enforcement climate.

Methods: This qualitative, community-engaged study used pláticas comunitarias (community dialogues) as the primary method of data collection. Four groups of 6–8 Latine/x women from mixed-status households (N=30) participated in facilitated dialogues exploring experiences of trauma, caregiving, and resilience. To address safety concerns related to surveillance and enforcement, participants used encrypted digital storytelling tools to document their experiences on their own terms. Thematic analysis was conducted collaboratively with community partners, with attention to patriarchal norms, gendered labor, and collective care as frameworks.

Results: Findings revealed that Latine/x women from mixed-status households hold central but unrecognized roles in sustaining both family well-being and broader community infrastructure. Participants described caregiving not as private or individual labor, but as a collective and politically significant act of survival. Themes of solidarity, intergenerational support, and strategic community organizing emerged across all four groups. Participants also reported that the plática format, grounded in cultural familiarity and relational trust, allowed for deeper disclosure than interview methods. The use of encrypted documentation tools was identified as a meaningful safeguard that supported participation among individuals who might otherwise have declined.

Conclusion and Implications: Community-engaged research conducted during periods of immigration enforcement requires researchers to actively grapple with institutional power while building conditions for safe, ethical documentation. This study demonstrates that pláticas comunitarias, combined with privacy-protected tools, can generate rich, community-centered knowledge while mitigating research-related risk. Findings point toward the need for trauma-informed, gender-equitable interventions that recognize caregiving as an essential community asset and advocate for policy change. Future work should explore how academic institutions can more formally operationalize solidarity as a research practice.