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The Hidden Grief Costs of Immigration Policy with Dr. Kristina Fullerton Rico

"COVID forced the rest of the world to experience what immigrants had already been living."

In this episode of Grief'd Up, host Rebecca Feinglos welcomes Dr. Kristina Fullerton Rico, a sociologist whose research reveals the grief penalties built into U.S. policy. Through years of bi-national fieldwork, Kristina exposes how immigration policies force millions of people to choose between earning money to support their families and being physically present when those families need them most.

Kristina created the Golden Cage Framework to explain this impossible bind. While undocumented immigrants can work hard in the U.S., policies trap them here, unable to return home without risking everything. Most people don't realize that half of the undocumented population has been in the U.S. for 20 years or more. These are established community members, our neighbors, many of whom are watching their parents age from thousands of miles away.

Rebecca and Kristina dig into what makes this grief different from other kinds of loss. It's anticipatory grief that lasts for years. Immigrants can see their loved ones aging, but have no way to address it. It's mourning without closure, because without the ability to see a body, attend a funeral, or gather with community, grief becomes what one participant called "a chapter with no ending." 

Kristina shares how people develop creative strategies: working 75-hour weeks to send money for medical care and funerals, sending their U.S.-born children to funerals as proxies, holding phones up at gravesides so parents can participate virtually. But these can never replace the ability to hold someone's hand, to hear stories about the person you've lost, to be physically present when it matters most.

This episode also examines what happens as undocumented immigrants age out of the workforce. After decades of paying taxes and working in the U.S., they discover they have zero access to social security, Medicare, or housing assistance. The choice becomes impossible: stay without support, or return home and say goodbye to your family. Kristina challenges us to question why we live in an era of unprecedented global mobility for some, while others face lifetime separation from dying parents, and whether birthplace should determine someone's destiny.

Rebecca and Kristinaā€™s conversation is timely, and eye-opening.

Connect with Kristina Fullerton Rico:

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