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.
Listening to two recent Supreme Court arguments on immigration, I heard something more than a debate over statutory language or constitutional text. I heard a stark illustration of how precarious rights can be when they depend on interpretation rather than being firmly embedded in the Constitution.
In one case, justices parsed the meaning of a single word—“arrives”—in ways that risked erasing access to asylum altogether. In the other, they confronted a direct challenge to the 14th Amendment and, in doing so, were forced to reckon with the real lives at stake.
That contrast is the point. When a right lives in statute, it can be narrowed, redefined or even functionally denied through legal gymnastics that separate words from their purpose. But when a right is written into the Constitution, it becomes harder—though not impossible—for courts to ignore its human consequences.
The difference isn’t abstract; it shapes whether people can seek refuge, claim citizenship or be recognized as equal under the law.
Taken together, these cases offer a warning—and a roadmap. If we want rights to endure, they must be grounded where they are hardest to dismantle. The Equal Rights Amendment was meant to do exactly that. And in this moment, as courts and lawmakers test the limits of existing protections, the case for finally enshrining it in the Constitution has never been clearer.
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.
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 healthcare. 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 month:
—Seoul holds the 41st Women’s Strike in South Korea for International Women’s Day.
—Hospital patients suffer during Cuba’s three major blackouts.
—The U.S. is at fault for the missile strike that hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls’ School in Minab, Iran, on Feb. 28, killing 175 people.
—Yanar Mohammed, a leading Iraqi feminist and human rights defender, was killed in an armed attack in Baghdad.
—IOC restricts transgender participation in Olympics.
—Amid widespread displacement, poverty and institutional collapse during the ongoing war in Gaza, families are increasingly turning to child marriage for their daughters.
… and more.
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.
In my daily life and organizing, I encounter people of various ages and backgrounds who feel stuck or unsure of what to do in this America. That’s when I recall Mr. Rogers’ wise words: “Look for the helpers”—particularly, the helpers most impacted and closest to the issues. In the quest for basic human rights and justice, I look for the everyday people in my community, across the country, who are carving paths of resistance—often with limited recognition or resources—who hold steady even when comforted with extreme pushback.
In the era of encrypted messaging and social media, mutual aid groups and meal trains offer different ways to plug in and engage. Each of us can play a role, based on our interests and strengths, in co-creating a world where we all thrive across identity, geography and difference.
(This essay is part of a collection presented by Ms. and the Groundswell Fund highlighting the work of Groundswell partners advancing inclusive democracy.)