Migrants—almost everywhere—live with a level of uncertainty that most citizens of the host country never experience. Until one obtains permanent status or citizenship, life remains unstable to varying degrees. Constant policy shifts, unpredictable administrative decisions, and even implicit or explicit threats of deportation create an environment of chronic stress, especially in today’s global climate. This is not an exaggeration; it has always existed, and it is now intensified.
What does the research show?
1. Legal instability is a direct predictor of psychological distress.
High-quality studies published in Lancet Psychiatry (2018, 2022) and JAMA Psychiatry (2016) show that legal insecurity—from asylum processes and undocumented status to temporary visas—is an independent, structural risk factor for depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. This phenomenon has nothing to do with personality traits or “low resilience”; it arises from an unstable living environment where one has no reliable sense of the future, work, housing, health care, or even the ability to remain in the country. Evidence shows that the longer the legal ambiguity persists, the more toxic stress accumulates and the more severe the clinical symptoms become. In short, what harms the mental health of vulnerable migrants is the legal and bureaucratic structure, not the individual psyche. For this reason, mental-health experts have long emphasized that legal stability is one of the most important non-clinical interventions for reducing psychological burden.
2. Unstable migration policy functions like a chronic stressor.
Research by Gonzales and colleagues (2013) shows that “legal limbo” disrupts concentration, sleep, and the ability to plan long-term. Migrants often describe living in a “permanent waiting room,” a psychological state of suspension.
3. For Iranian migrants, geopolitical factors amplify this experience.
Findings from the study by Taridasti and colleagues (2025) indicate that highly educated Iranian migrants and international students in the U.S. face unique pressures directly shaped by U.S. migration policies. Entry and reentry restrictions, the emotional and social fallout of the “Travel Ban,” extended family separation, and chronic immigration uncertainty all contribute to heightened anxiety, insomnia, isolation, and psychological distress. Participants described an enduring sense of instability that affected their careers, relationships, and mental health. These findings show that U.S. migration policies—beyond being legal and administrative—act as a direct social determinant of health for Iranian migrants.
4. Chronic uncertainty erodes psychological functioning.
The 2022 WHO World Mental Health Report explicitly states that “uncertain legal status is one of the strongest social determinants of deteriorating mental health among migrants.” In other words, this is not about individual weakness; it is the predictable consequence of political instability.
Recent changes in U.S. immigration policies—stricter standards, stalled processing, shifting asylum criteria, higher minimum salaries for work visas, and stronger interior enforcement—send a clear message: the landscape is not predictable for those without stable status. The psychological outcome is equally clear: loss of control, loss of timing, and erosion of the sense that “effort = outcome.” For any human being, this dynamic is corrosive.
