No sabían que éramos semillas: nepantlera-informed navigation amid structural barriers to immigrant resource access in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex

Immigrant communities in Texas navigate resource access within policy climates and systems that often treat safety, eligibility, and belonging as contingent. This study examines barriers to immigrants’ access to health and socioeconomic resources in the Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) metroplex and applies the nepantlera framework to culturally embedded navigation rooted in lived experience, liminal positioning, and critical awareness of exclusion for culturally responsive social work practice. We conducted a secondary analysis of qualitative interviews conducted in DFW between December 2019 and January 2021 with 21 key informants who had personal and/or professional knowledge of immigrant communities across education, healthcare, social services, advocacy, government, and business. Using phenomenological, ethnographic, and feminist sensibilities, we analyzed de-identified transcripts and field notes through inductive coding and iterative peer debriefing. Findings describe: (1) policy climates that generate fear and service avoidance, including persistent confusion about public charge; (2) public narratives that scapegoat immigrants and sort deservingness; (3) organizational scarcity and workforce strain that truncate support and contribute to burnout; (4) navigation labor shifted to children and trusted insiders through language brokering; (5) localized DFW barriers, including uneven language access, disinvestment and gentrification, gatekept education systems, and healthcare constrained by cost, legality, and geography; and (6) immigrant community power as practical infrastructure for navigation, mutual aid, and collective action. We advance nepantlera-informed navigation as community-embedded infrastructure rather than an individual skill and outline practice considerations emphasizing fear as structural, continuity-building navigation supports, parent-facing capacity building, compensated community-embedded navigator roles, and shared institutional accountability amid renewed federal uncertainty.