Immigration

The Ugliest of Bills: How Republicans’ Reconciliation Bill Endangers All Children

One of the many dangers of the budget reconciliation package currently before the Senate is its audacity. It is so large, so ugly and so expensive—nothing beautiful to see here—that it can be hard to know how to fight back. 

So much is at risk that, even assuming some of the most talked-about measures, such as Medicaid cuts, are removed or modified in the Senate, it is likely that passage of This Ugliest of Bills (THUG Bill) would still fundamentally harm millions of people.  

Children—citizen and non-citizen—are going to be especially hard hit if this ugliest of bills passes.

Ms. Global: Police Target Georgian Women Protesters, Dominican Republic Deports Pregnant Haitian Women, and More

The U.S. ranks as the 19th most dangerous country for women, 11th in maternal mortality, 30th in closing the gender pay gap, 75th in women’s political representation, and painfully lacks paid family leave and equal access to health care. But Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’s most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.

This week: News from South Korea, Mexico, Poland, Australia and more.

Give Laken Riley Her Name Back

I’m talking both to the man who murdered Laken Riley and the people who use her name to push their own agenda. Laken Riley is not a bill or a law. She was a person. 

It’s time for the world to give Laken Riley her name back. Let her family remember her for the life she lived. Let them empower her memory without invoking her name as a political battle cry. And let’s fight for a world where we invoke Riley’s memory to protect more women just like her, and not for another twisted cause.

Profiles in Courage: IRS vs. ICE? Melanie Krause Quit Rather Than Hand Over Your Tax Data for Deportations

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Profiles in Courage honors the extraordinary women and men who have transformed American institutions through principled public service. At a time when trust in government is fragile, these stories offer a powerful reminder of what ethical leadership looks like—from those who litigate for civil rights and resign on principle, to those who break military barriers and defend democracy on the front lines.

As soon as Trump took office, the administration unveiled a plan to share IRS taxpayer data with the Department of Homeland Security to accelerate immigration enforcement. On the morning of Tuesday, April 15 (coincidentally Tax Day), Krause convened her leadership team. With quiet resolve, she announced that she would accept a deferred resignation offer rather than lend her name or the agency’s credibility to a policy she believed threatened taxpayer privacy, undermined statutory limits and risked eroding voluntary compliance.

“If the public cannot trust that their confidential returns will remain sacrosanct,” she said, “the foundation of our tax system cracks.”

Keeping Score: Trump Administration Attacks Immigrant Students; Pregnant Women Left Behind in RFK Jr.’s COVID Policy Shift; House GOP Targets SNAP and Medicaid

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:
—House Republicans pass a reconciliation bill with almost $1 trillion in cuts to SNAP and Medicaid; feminists call it “unacceptable, inhumane and reckless.”
—”There is literally no oversight happening in this committee under the GOP,” laments Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), ranking member of the Subcommittee on DOGE, led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
—Mahmoud Khalil’s powerful letter to his newborn son: “How is it that the same politicians who preach ‘family values’ are the ones tearing families apart?”
—Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s HHS will no longer advise pregnant women and children to receive the COVID vaccine, an unusual decision that sidesteps standard CDC process.
—Women-owned small businesses have higher job satisfaction.
—A federal judge attacks protections for LGBTQ Americans.

… and more.

‘Tap Someone In’: Mini Timmaraju on Mentorship, Motherhood and Mobilizing Indian American Women

Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL), doesn’t just rise—she brings others with her. This ethos of tapping in challenges Indian American women to move from individual achievement to collective empowerment.

As my conversation with Timmaraju unfolded, we explored her childhood, her professional journey and the simplest yet most impactful action she believes Indian American women should take right now. It’s clear that Timmaraju’s story is not just about her own path, but about building pathways for others.

“We need to build our own villages—not just for family, but for career and leadership, too,” she said. “We shouldn’t do it alone.”

White Plight: Trump’s Embrace of White South African ‘Refugees’ Is a Racist Bullhorn

This week, Afrikaner “refugees” began arriving in the U.S.—some of the only refugees welcomed by the Trump administration. These white South Africans claim they are being persecuted at home: That white farmers are being attacked; that South Africa is not a safe place for them to live.

Much of the criticism of Trump’s decision to end refugee resettlement from just about everywhere else on the planet while welcoming a group that really isn’t facing particularly severe persecution has been derided as “political.” And it certainly is a stunt intended to provoke liberal outrage. But we should just call it what it is. It’s not “political.” It’s not a dogwhistle.

It’s racist.

This obvious troll from Trump (by way, I suspect, of Elon Musk and Stephen Miller) shows that, if they have their way, all the power will be white power.

Keeping Score: Rep. Jasmine Crockett Questions Trump’s ‘Fitness to Serve’; Women Carry Two-Thirds of Student Debt; Congress Votes to Criminalize Revenge Porn

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: HHS promotes conversion therapy-like policies and opposes gender-affirming care; new executive order could lead to discrimination from credit lenders; Trump guts the Women’s Health Initiative; Wyoming abortion clinic celebrates a TRAP law injunction; Olivia Rodrigo received Planned Parenthood award; and more.

Immigrant Kids Trapped in U.S. Custody: The Hidden Crisis Inside the Office of Refugee Resettlement

A new form of family separation has been quietly engineered at the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s Unaccompanied Minors program, the HHS office responsible for the care and custody of immigrant children who enter the U.S. alone. Under President Trump’s border closures, the number of unaccompanied children entering the United States has dropped significantly, and yet, on average, each child is remaining in government custody weeks longer—even when a parent is available to reunite with their child.

Children are being detained for longer periods of time as the government increases the requirements for releasing them to parents or other family members, often with heartbreaking consequences.

U.S. Citizen Children Are the Latest Casualty in Trump’s Immigration War

On Friday, a 2-year-old U.S. citizen was deported with “no meaningful process,” according to a federal judge. She’s one of several U.S. citizen children being torn from their home, sent to foreign countries without due process, and stripped of their rights and protection.

This little girl—and all U.S. citizen children of immigrant parents—deserves to be safe from deportation. She needs to know that the people around her love her and want to do what’s best for her. She needs to grow up in a country that wants her to thrive and succeed. She needs to believe that her family and everyone else will be able to count on the government to protect them from harm, and when necessary, to protect her from the government itself. In this moment, that may seem like a tall order, but only if we stand by while abuses like this happen. 

The government has the power to find and return these families. As a former DHS official, I know that deportation planes can be held, individuals can be taken off the manifest, and that officials can find and return people who have been wrongfully deported. It is not a question of resources, or logistics, or diplomatic niceties, or court orders. It’s a question of returning to the idea that immigration law is not a vehicle for expelling one’s enemies, but a set of laws that replicate the fundamental principles of dignity, justice and a fair day in court.