Tag: ICE

Protesters holding signs that read My Body My Choice, Human right, Bans Off Our Bodies, Abortion Is Healthcare.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health and Its Devastating Implications for Immigrants’ Rights

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Asees Bhasin

While reproductive injustice against immigrants is not new, they are now even more vulnerable to reproductive oppression in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning the constitutional right to abortion.

Immigrant reproduction has long been vilified and opposed, with immigrant parents facing accusations of being hyper-fertile and giving birth to “anchor babies.” Additionally, pregnant immigrants have faced additional structural barriers to accessing necessary abortion care. This article explains how these injustices are likely to be exacerbated by the Dobbs ruling.

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Washington, DC, USA - July 6, 2020: Protesters rally for housing as a human right at Black Homes Matter rally at Freedom Plaza, organized by Empower DC.

Building Power Across Movements for Health Justice 

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Solange Gould

At its core, public health is the radical concept that everyone has a fundamental right to the conditions required for health and well-being. To realize this vision of health justice, we must forge a strategy that moves beyond the pre-pandemic status quo and the broken systems that got us there.  

It’s time to re-envision and invest in a new public health infrastructure, one that is equipped and authorized to respond to the concurrent global crises we are facing: COVID-19; structural racism; White supremacy; climate change; and the failures of capitalism to provide for the basic human needs that are required for health. This infrastructure must center and build the power of those most impacted by structural inequity in order to truly advance justice. 

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Prison watch tower.

Government Report Finds Care Deficits for Pregnant People in Federal Custody

Elyssa Spitzer Leave a comment

By Elyssa Spitzer

Pregnant and postpartum people in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and U.S. Marshals Service receive care directed by policies that fail to meet national standards, according to a report recently issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). 

This, despite the fact that, incarcerated women are among the most vulnerable people, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. In the GAO report’s terms, incarcerated women: “often have medical and mental health conditions that make their pregnancies a high risk for adverse outcomes, which is compounded by inconsistent access to adequate, quality pregnancy care and nutrition while in custody.”

Notably, the report found that the BOP and U.S. Marshals’ policies failed to satisfy the national standards — to say nothing of the gaps that may exist between written policy and the care that is, in fact, provided. Read More

Photograph of memorial to victims of the El Paso, TX mass shooting

Pervasive Health Effects of Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric at the U.S.-Mexican Border

Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research 4 Comments

By Lilo Blank

The current xenophobic, racist, and anti-immigrant climate in the United States and its detrimental impact on immigrant communities and their health cannot be ignored. This month, gunmen have executed a series of mass shootings, including one specifically in El Paso, Texas, in which the gunman killed 22 people. The FBI is currently investigating the shooting as a suspected hate crime against immigrants. Terroristic acts of violence such as this are enough to incite fear in anyone, but especially in Hispanic communities on the border, who are facing additional forms of structural violence.

“Stigma is fundamentally about alienation and exclusion,” said stigma expert Dr. Daniel Goldberg, Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus’s Center for Bioethics and Humanities, in a recent interview. “Even when you control for access, people who are stigmatized get sicker and die quicker. And of course, we are social creatures. If stigma exists persistently and longitudinally, the more likely you are to be socially isolated, and social isolation is one of the most powerful predictors of mortality.”

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