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A 28-year-old woman, who was set to give birth in a matter of days, was detained by immigration authorities in California this summer amid the current presidential administration’s crackdown on immigrants, asylum seekers, and U.S. citizens. Her story is part of a disturbing rise in pregnant people suddenly being approached by border patrol officers or plain-clothed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. As ICE raids have devastated more families in recent months, immigrant and reproductive rights advocates have raised concerns about the impact of the raids on the reproductive health of those arrested, detained, and forcibly separated from their families.

The harms inflicted on immigrants, especially the medical neglect and abuse of pregnant people, are not only an immigration justice crisis, they’re a reproductive justice crisis as well. Reproductive justice — a movement and framework created by Black women and other women of color — is defined as the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children or not have children, and parent children in safe and sustainable communities. The simultaneous withdrawal of abortion access and this country’s long-standing history of injustice against Black and Brown people has created near-dystopian conditions for immigrant communities, where access to both reproductive care and freedom from deportation are increasingly under attack.

Witnessing the Crisis From the Front Lines

In the past six months, Fund Texas Choice, a statewide abortion practical support organization that fills in gaps to accessing essential health care, has seen up close how immigrant justice and reproductive justice go hand in hand. We have........

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