More Than A Magazine, A Movement
I never knew if it was safe for me to have a child.
For most people, that question is about timing or readiness. For me, it was about something more fundamental. Not whether my child would belong in the United States, but whether I would be able to stay with them, have access to them, and be able to be their parent without fear.
Speaking in early February, while the nation was still reeling from the killings of Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, Jackson Katz, a leading voice in gender violence prevention and masculinity studies, and Loretta Ross, a celebrated Black feminist scholar and cofounder of SisterSong, examined the deadly ways misogyny and racism intersect in Donald Trump’s America.
The two of them had a nuanced exploration of how government institutions, cultural narratives and political movements shape—and weaponize—issues of gender and race. Their candid exchange critiques the forces behind U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and right-wing populism, and challenges us to rethink empathy, identity and our strategies for building a more inclusive feminist movement.
In 2026, the “ordinary” lives of immigrant children are being systematically dismantled.
After family detention was largely phased out in 2021, the second Trump administration has revived the practice, resulting in a tenfold increase in the number of children held in ICE custody.
From the high-security gates of the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, mothers and children report a harrowing reality of medical neglect, psychological trauma and the long confinement in these centers.
This is a look inside the “black box” of family immigration detention—and the brave voices breaking the silence.
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“We have been here for nine months. I really miss playing with my toys and my watch. Please get us out of here.”
“I have friends, school and family here in the United States. … To this day, I don’t know what we did wrong to be detained. … I feel like I’ll never get out of here. I just ask that you don’t forget about us.”
“In one minute our entire lives were changed and our plans and dreams were destroyed … This place broke something in us. Something that I don’t know if we will ever be able to fix.”
U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter—a physician and member of Congress from Oregon—visited a remote immigration detention center in San Benito, Texas. Her goal: to talk to the girls living there. She wanted to assess for herself a place deemed ill-equipped to handle the potential medical complications faced by pregnant minors and young mothers by immigrant rights and healthcare advocates.
In an interview with Ms., Rep. Dexter raises urgent concerns about secrecy, missing girls, and inadequate medical care for pregnant unaccompanied minors in federal custody.
“The staff clearly were not helping us speak with them. And that gives me extraordinary concerns that there’s something they’re hiding …”
In the end, Dexter and her group visited a ghost town. They did not see a single child on their tour of the shelter, which currently houses two pregnant girls, two young mothers and their babies and three other girls.
“Just a few months ago they had many more girls. I asked where, where have they gone? Have they been returned to other countries? Are they in foster care? Are they transferred? And they said they couldn’t share that information with us. So, you know, it’s clear they’re trying to limit the number of girls in these facilities now. But where the hell are they?”
As we ramp up for Mother’s Day in the United States, children in this country are being locked up in immigration detention—not just as policy, but as part of a growing, for-profit system.
American tax dollars are subsidizing this extension of collective punishment to the youngest among us, including babies and toddlers, here at home.
Making it possible is the $45 billion cash infusion U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) received from Congress last year for detention operations. Over 90 percent of facilities are privately run.
One ICE corporate partner, CoreCivic, reported $2.5 billion in 2025 revenue, including $180 million from its Dilley Immigration Processing facility, the sole destination for U.S. warehousing of families. Dilley is where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was sent after ICE agents detained him and his father outside their Minnesota home—galvanizing Americans aghast by the image of a child in a bunny hat taken into federal custody.
But Liam Conejo Ramos and his father were not alone. This month, Human Rights First and RAICES published a new report, “A New Era of ICE Family Prisons,” documenting the unjust, prolonged and abusive detention of over 5,600 children and parents at Dilley since the Trump administration reopened it in April 2025.
Extensive interviews of detained families reveal patterns of harm and denial of due process that shock the conscience and demand accountability. Meanwhile, 121 pregnant, postpartum and nursing women were detained in ICE custody as of February 2026.
Children belong in school, not detention, and with their moms and dads. Together, we can shutter the Dilley facility, and let immigrant families live their lives in dignity.
There is something especially ugly about going after children, denying them a basic education, which cuts off their path to life in a way that can’t be restored later on in their lives. But that’s what Republicans want to do.
An estimated 600,000 to 850,000 undocumented children are enrolled in K-12 education in the United States. They are not abstractions. They are kids sitting in classrooms next to American citizens, learning the lessons that will permit them to contribute to whatever society they are a part of as adults. Forcibly removing their access to education doesn’t just harm them individually, it leaves entire communities worse off.
A looming policy change threatens to undo existing protections and leave pregnant immigrant teens in federal custody without meaningful access to abortion care.
We won’t know what direction the rule will take until the proposed rule is released, but if the Trump administration’s antiabortion policies—such as the reinstatement of the Veterans Administration’s ban on abortion and abortion counseling, the defunding of Planned Parenthood and the reinstatement of an expanded global gag rule—are any indication, the rights of this marginalized population are at great risk.
On Tuesday, March 24, the government will ask the Supreme Court to declare that asylum law does not apply at the border. The case—Noem v. Al Otro Lado—was brought by asylum seekers to challenge Trump’s turnback policy.
If the Supreme Court succumbs to Trump’s twisted logic, he will likely consider it carte blanche to keep the border closed permanently to asylum seekers and other people in need of protection. In other words, only people who already have permission to enter the United States could ask for protection.
As the Trump administration has shuttered virtually all other avenues to obtain protection in the United States, this effectively would violate non-refoulement and expose people seeking asylum at the southern border to danger and death.
The Noem v. Al Otro Lado case is both an effort to preserve the right to asylum and a step towards holding the administration accountable for ignoring the human cost of its border policies.
In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.
This week:
—Dolores Huerta breaks her silence at 96: “I have never identified myself as a victim, but I now understand that I am a survivor.”
—Trump pressures Senate Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act, a “show your papers” policy that would require U.S. citizens to show a passport or birth certificate in order to register to vote.
—A performative personnel exchange at DHS: from Kristi Noem … to Markwayne Mullin?
—The U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, killing at least 1,332 people.
—March 10 is Abortion Provider Appreciation Day.
—DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was fired, as ICE reports 32 deaths in detention facilities in 2025.
—Access to early prenatal care is declining in the U.S., especially in states with abortion bans.
—A record one-third of American workers not have access to government-mandated paid leave.
—The U.S. deported a gay woman to Morocco, where her sexuality is illegal and she faces violence from her family.
—Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claimed gender-affirming mental healthcare for trans youth is “child abuse.”
—New Mexico and New York take steps towards free universal childcare.
—Jessie Buckley took home the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her role in Hamnet. The film was directed by Chloé Zhao, one of nine women to ever be nominated for the award of Best Director and the only woman nominated this year.
… and more.
In early February, while the nation was still reeling from the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, Loretta Ross and Jackson Katz—two feminist academics with decidedly different backgrounds and identities—discussed how U.S. federal agents became the enforcement arm of the nation’s racism and misogyny.
You’ll find this, and more, in the Spring 2026 issue of Ms.