With climate disasters increasing drastically, disaster resilience efforts have to adapt. Resilience Force is a new initiative working on providing disaster relief to the most vulnerable—an effort led by women of color.
Category: Immigration
How the Biden Administration Can Begin To Erase the Shameful Legacy of Trump-Era Immigration Ban
Keeping a public health order that was legally suspect in force because it gave DHS free rein to expel is not a solution to border control. There are many steps the administration can take to begin to erase the legacy of Title 42, like implementing reforms and improvements.
Student Loan Debt Is a Gender Issue, Especially for Women of Color
The student loan debt crisis is at an all time high, with 45 million people carrying an estimated $1.7 trillion in federal student loan debt. Women carry roughly two-thirds of it. Black and Brown women are disproportionately impacted by this issue.
Economic inequality, as influenced by class, race and gender, further increases each day student loan debt cancellation is delayed.
Under Biden, Cruelty Towards Asylum Seekers Persists
Anti-immigrant politicians and pundits continue to accuse Biden of promoting open borders, even as he pursues the most restrictionist border policies in recent history. This is not a constituency the president will likely ever satisfy.
It is long past time for the Biden administration to honor its promises and establish a safe, fair and humane asylum process for people fleeing danger.
Congress Must Take This Critical Step to Protect Immigrant Survivors
For years, the U.S. has failed immigrant survivors by limiting their access to critical assistance programs. The LIFT the BAR Act is an opportunity for Congress to take real steps towards protecting immigrant survivors and getting them the resources they need.
The LIFT the BAR Act restores access to federal assistance programs like Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), by removing the five-year bar and other barriers that deny critical care and aid to people who are lawfully present.
“Any Day They Could Deport Me”: Immigrant Children in Legal Purgatory
There are more than 44,000 child immigrants trapped in the Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) backlog, waiting to apply for a green card. In the meantime, they are vulnerable to deportation, homelessness and abuse.
Children from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala in particular must wait an average of four years to receive green cards after first applying for SIJS. As Congress and the Biden administration push for immigration protections, SIJS children have been left out.
“The Traumas of Irwin Continue to Haunt Me”: Non-Consensual Surgery Survivor Seeks Restitution, Calls to Shut Down Detention Centers
In 2019, I became one of about 40 women subjected to invasive non-consensual gynecological surgery while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia. What happened to me is not a one-off aberration—it’s a legacy of American white-supremacist pseudo-science going back decades.
For justice to be served, the government, ICE and all culpable individuals must be held accountable for what happened to me.
Four Years After #MeToo, We Need a Movement Led by Women of the Global South
Four years after #MeToo went viral, women continue to come forward with their stories of sexual harassment in the workplace and elsewhere. Unfortunately, we can only tell some women’s #MeToo stories after it’s too late.
If we’re going to realize the promise of the #MeToo movement for all women, we need to start with addressing the immigration, caste and other systems that harassers and abusers use to exert power over women.
The Feminist Peace Initiative Urges Intersectional Feminist Principles in U.S. Foreign Policy
The Feminist Peace Initiative, co-founded by MADRE, Women Cross DMZ and the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, challenges and reimagines a U.S. foreign policy in the interests of all people and the planet.
“The conditions people flee—economic, violence—are push factors often created by U.S. policies, and exacerbated by the climate catastrophe, a result of corporate extraction or militarized pollution.”
How to Have an Immigration Conversation During the Holidays That’s Unifying, Not Polarizing
This holiday could give us a chance to start over with a national conversation on immigration that is unifying, rather than polarizing.
Such a conversation starts with identifying shared values and employing active listening. This is also an opportunity to bring our values as feminists to the table.