Marco Flores Deserves to Stay in the U.S.: A Feminist Argument Against Deportation

Marco Flores and his mother migrated to the U.S. from El Salvador for a better future. When Marco was 9, a neighbor began sexually abusing him, which continued until Marco was 14. Eventually, Marco’s mother told him the neighbor would soon be moving into their home to babysit his 6-year-old nephew. Convinced that this was the only way to protect his nephew from the abuse he had endured, teenage Marco murdered Jaime Galdamez. Marco accepted a plea deal and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Now in his early 30s, Marco has served his time and is set to be released—and immediately deported back to El Salvador. Two lawyers are fighting for him to remain. A feminist understanding of immigration ethics offers a better understanding of the moral challenge in question—underscoring why Marco Flores deserves to remain in the United States.

Dr. Curtis Boyd: A Lifetime at the Borders of Abortion’s Legality

‘Is abortion legal in the United States?’ How should we even respond to that question? One way is by telling the stories of those who have lived at the borders of abortion’s illegality, such as Dr. Curtis Boyd.

Boyd, now 85, provided illegal abortions to patients in the pre-Roe era. He successfully ran abortion clinics in Dallas and Albuquerque—devoting much of his career to crossing and re-crossing the Texas-New Mexico border, alongside his wife and business partner, Dr. Glenna Halvorson-Boyd, a reproductive rights activist and trainer of abortion counselors. Today, his Dallas clinic can no longer offer abortions. But he and other “doctors of conscience” remain committed to providing a safe space for those in need of abortion.

The Texas Ban and the Migration Injustice

“Abortion migration” is when pregnant people travel long distances and cross internal and national borders to access abortion care. While the news out of Texas is extraordinarily alarming, both Texas women and pregnant people across the globe have long been traveling to places like Albuquerque to legally terminate pregnancies. Various forms of state and state-sanctioned power combine to coerce our movement in ways that threaten our dignity and equal standing.