Comprehensive Immigration Reform is a Critical Step to Improving Lives of Immigrant Women and Children

Last Friday in Washington, D.C., Legal Momentum held a congressional briefing on immigrant women and comprehensive immigration reform.  While immigration reform has been at the center of the national debate for years, it often fails to acknowledge the important economic contributions of the more than 18.9 million foreign-born women currently residing and working in the United States. 

Just as their contributions are often invisible, so too is the more unsettling side of immigrant women's experience in America.  Immigrant women are among the most at risk of poverty, employer exploitation, sexual abuse and family violence.  Indeed, “Immigrant women are still in the shadows. Very little is known about immigrant women and the challenges they confront,” said Laura Vasquez, who attended the briefing as a representative of the National Council of La Raza.

Seemingly gender-neutral immigration laws are having a particularly harmful impact on immigrant women: 

• In a family-based immigration system rife with backlogs, women are left languishing for years in undocumented immigration status, foreclosing their ability to live and work separate from their spouses. 
• Increased immigration enforcement separates immigrant mothers from their children, places mothers in electronic shackles and actually increases immigrant women’s vulnerability by giving abusive employers and spouses the ability to threaten victims with family separation, detainment and deportation. This discriminatory practice deprives mothers of the basic human right to raise and nurture their children, regardless of their immigrant status. “Polls indicate that many immigrant women report that their primary challenge is helping their children achieve success,” stated Vasquez. “This speaks to the aspirations of immigrant women – to work, contribute, and their children do the same.”
• When bureaucratic delays preclude access to legal work authorization, immigrant women suffer as they are forced to work for poverty-level wages or with unscrupulous employers just to make ends meet. “America relies on immigrant workers, many of whom are women,” said Heidi Hartmann, President of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) which has extensively investigated the critical role of immigrant women in the economy. Yet while immigrant women make up a significant portion of the workforce, IWPR has shown that half of immigrant Latinos and nearly 70% of immigrant Latinas have incomes below $25,000.
  
  

Delaying comprehensive immigration reform has a tangible, negative impact on women,  families and communities through out the country. Current immigration laws fail to protect the health, safety, and general welfare of immigrants, particularly women and children. “There is no question that our immigration system is broken and that those who suffer the most are women, children, and their families,” said Representative Lynn Woolsey of California. To address this, any approach to reforming immigration policy and enforcement must include a variety of measures that create paths to legalization and increased access to federal benefits and social services.

Irasema Garza, President of Legal Momentum, said “Reforms in immigration laws and policies will be most effective in improving conditions of immigrant women and their families when they are grounded in an real understanding of the challenges and circumstances facing this population. We have a great opportunity to craft policies that respect workers, protect women and families and benefit our nation’s communities.”

• Read the complete Sign-on Letter and Policy Recommendations.
• Raise your voice as an individual and Urge Congress to Support Immigration Reform that Confronts the Challenges Facing Immigrant Women.
• Have your Organization Sign-On in Support by sending an email including your organization and contact information.