Migration Category: news-10001-15000-national

Yesterday Kansas Governor Sam Brownback (R) signed SB 36, a bill requiring that abortion clinics in Kansas be inspected two times per year, one of which must be unannounced. The bill would also prohibit the clinics from prescribing mifepristone, also known as RU-486 or the abortion pill, remotely through telemedicine. The law will go into effect July 1.

The bill authorizes the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to regulate buildings and equipment for the clinics and issue licenses annually to clinics performing abortions. If the clinics do not comply with the established standards, the Department can then issue fines and file lawsuits to have the clinics closed.

Peter Brownlie, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and mid-Missouri, clarified that that SB 36 would “make the services more expensive and more difficult to obtain or more difficult to provide.”

In April, Governor Brownback signed a bill requiring that medical providers obtain a written and notarized indication of consent from both parents prior to offering abortion services to minors.

Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Ranking Member of the House Rules Committee, introduced provisions to the National Defense Authorization to address the issue of sexual assault in the military late last week. If passed, the bill would create confidentiality policies for victims of sexual assault, increase trainings on sexual assault, and create an easier process for sexual assault victims and offenders to be relocated from their current base.

Representative Slaughter explained, “As America fights two wars, our women and men in battle can be worlds away and if they find themselves the victims of sexual assault, in theatre or at home, it must be recognized and the assailant must be brought to justice. Sadly this is almost never the reality. We have a duty to protect our men and women in uniform from the tragedy that is sexual assault in the military.”

Anu Bhagwati, executive director of Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) and a former military Marine Corps Captain, clarified, “Provisions in this bill would protect services members who experience sexual assault by providing for confidential communications between victims and their advocates, expedited humanitarian transfers and reassignments so victims aren’t forced to work alongside or even share living quarters with their rapists, and a hotline for service members to report rapes or suspected rapes.”

In February, attorney Susan Burke filed a lawsuit in the Eastern Virginia federal court against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates for failing to prevent, investigate, and prosecute the sexual assault and rape of the 17 plaintiffs. The plaintiffs in the case are veteran and active-duty service members from the Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and Reserves who were sexually assaulted, raped, or harassed by active duty military members. Burke stated in Ms. magazine’s Spring 2010 article by Natalie Wilson, “Culture of Rape,” “You shouldn’t have to be raped in order to sign up and serve your country.”

According to a 2003 study by the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, at least one-third of all women veterans have experienced rape or sexual assault during their service, and thirty percent of military women experience domestic violence. Moreover, rape occurs in the military nearly twice as often as in the civilian world. Members of the US House of Representatives, including Susan Davis (D-CA), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Louise Slaughter (D-NY), and former Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA) have pressed the military to address sexualized violence, working on task forces and proposing legislation.

Following a 22 month investigation, the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, chaired by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Vice Chair Johnny Isakson (R-GA), released a report yesterday, supported unanimously by the bipartisan committee of three Democrats and three Republicans, that former Nevada Senator John Ensign violated Senate rules, broke federal law, made false statements to the Federal Election Commission, and engaged in sex discrimination. According to the report, “there is substantial credible evidence that Senator Ensign discriminated on the basis of sex and engaged in improper conduct reflecting upon the Senate by terminating the Hamptons’ [Douglas Hampton, Ensign’s Chief of Staff, and his wife Cindy] employment because of the [sexual] affair” with Cindy.

Moreover, the Ethics Committee found that Ensign attempted to thwart the Ethics Committee’s preliminary inquiry, demonstrated improper conduct, and violated laws governing campaign finances. The Ethics Committee investigation also revealed anti-women’s rights and so-called pro-family Senator Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) involvement and collaboration in the cover-up of Ensign’s affair. Both Senators Ensign and Coburn were residents at C-Street, a right wing so-called religious organization where several Republican leaders were revealed to be in sexual scandals.

Eleanor Smeal, President of Feminist Majority, stated, “Once again anti-women’s rights Senators who posed as pro-family legislators are revealed to be harmful hypocrites. The Ethics Committee should investigate if Senator Coburn violated Senate rules or laws in collaborating in the cover-up.”

The investigation began in June 2009 after Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), filed a complaint to the Ethics Committee alleging that Ensign had engaged in sexual harassment and employment discrimination by using his political power to hide his affair with one of his employees who was also the wife his Chief of Staff. According to the report, Cindy Hampton tried repeatedly to stop the affair but Ensign, using his power as the sole financial support for her family, relentlessly pursued her. Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW, stated, “It is encouraging to see the Senate Ethics Committee agrees with what CREW has said from the beginning: Senator John Ensign broke the law and he should be prosecuted. Throughout the entire ordeal, Senator Ensign insisted that he did nothing wrong; what a surprise, he lied again.”

Senator Boxer indicated that had Ensign not resigned in early May, he might have been one of the first senators to be expelled from the Senate in 150 years. The Ethics Committee referred the case to the Federal Election Committee and the Justice Department for a criminal investigation. This was the first time in 20 years that special counsel was appointed by the Senate Ethics Committee to conduct an investigation of a senator.

Ensign received a 0 percent rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America and a 100 percent rating from National Right to Life Committee, indicating his consistent anti-abortion and anti-family planning voting record. The NAACP rated Ensign 7 percent for his anti-affirmative action stance, and the Active Retirement Association (ARA) rated Ensign 20 percent, due to his anti-senior voting record. Ensign has consistently voted against women’s rights issues, including the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act. He also voted against a bill to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program and is against raising the minimum wage to $7.25. Moreover, Ensign supported the privatization of Social Security.

Yesterday, the Ugandan Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee issued a report recommending passage for the Anti-Homosexuality or “Kill a Gay” Bill, which calls for the death penalty in cases of “aggravated homosexuality,” for engaging in same sex relations with someone who is HIV positive, and life imprisonment for having sex with someone of the same sex. The bill would also would make same-sex marriage and officiating at such a ceremony criminal offenses. The report is scheduled to be resented before the Ugandan parliament today.

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill went before the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee on Friday and was originally scheduled for a vote on Wednesday but was dropped from the Parliament’s agenda following condemnation from the President, the Secretary of State, members of Congress, and human rights groups. David Bahati, a member of the Ugandan Parliament and one of the leaders of the Family or Fellowship of C Street fame (see Jeff Sharlet’s latest book on C Street), first introduced the bill in 2009.

Homosexuality is illegal in most African countries with the exception of South Africa, which recognizes gay marriage, but even there, anti-gay practices such as “corrective rapes” on lesbians, are commonplace.

The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act was re-introduced in the Senate yesterday by Senators Richard Durbin, Harry Reid, Robert Menendez, and 30 others. The DREAM Act would allow undocumented young people to apply for legal status upon joining the military or attending college for two years.

President Obama gave a speech on immigration on Tuesday in El Paso, Texas, in which he urged Congress to pass the DREAM Act. Last fall, the DREAM Act passed the House but failed to pass the Senate. The bill was first introduced in 2001 by Senator Durbin, and today is supported by the Obama administration, the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Education, and Defense.

Another immigration bill has been introduced in the House which requires employers to use a system called E-Verify when hiring workers to make sure that they are allowed to work in the United States. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid says that if this legislation passes, the Senate may be able to attach the DREAM Act to the bill.

Each year, 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school in the U.S. but are ineligible for college. Earlier this month, twenty-two U.S. Senators in a letter called on the President to use his executive authority to grant “deferred action”-a stay from deportation-to DREAM Act-eligible students.

Obama remarked in his speech Tuesday that he would not use his executive powers to stop deportations of undocumented people. The American Immigration Council has urged the administration to stop claiming that its hands are tied on immigration reform, saying, “It is time for the Administration to more clearly define a vision for what its legacy on immigration will be, then take action to ensure that vision is reflected in its interpretation and implementation of immigration law.”

A study published in the American Journal of Public Health revealed that in the Democratic Republic of Congo, women are raped at a rate 26 times higher than the rate of 16,000 rapes yearly reported by the United Nations (UN). The national study, conducted by Amber Peterman of the International Food Policy Research Institute, Tia Palermo of Stony Brook University and Caryn Bredenkamp of the World Bank, found that approximately 400,000 women were raped between 2006 and 2007. This amounts to roughly 48 women raped per hour.

Margot Wallstrom, Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, clarified that the UN figures are conservative because the Security Council is only permitted to report cases of rape verified by the organization. Lisa Shannon, founder of Run for Congo Women and A Thousand Sisters, told The Daily Beast, “I was overwhelmed but I wasn’t shocked. We’ve known for a long time that the numbers coming out of Congo were vastly underreported.”

The Democratic Republic of Congo has been named the “rape capital of the world” by the United Nations. The United Nations has condemned the lack of civilian protection provided by Congolese police, military, and UN stabilization forces in the area. Since the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo began in 1998, millions of women have been raped.

Yesterday Syrian officials released information on the whereabouts of Dorothy Parvaz, 39, an Iranian-born US citizen and Al-Jazeera reporter who went missing for two weeks while covering the uprisings against President Bashar Assad. The Syrian officials reported that Parvaz was deported from Syria after being detained in Damascus and is currently being held in Iran.

A representative from Al-Jazeera stated, “We have now received information that she is being held in Tehran. We are calling for information from the Iranian authorities, access to Dorothy, and for her immediate release. We have had no contact with Dorothy since she left Doha on 29 April and we are deeply concerned for her welfare.”

Parvaz attended the University of British Columbia and earned a masters from the University of Arizona. She has completed fellowships in journalism from both Harvard and Cambridge.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, based in New York, indicated that Syria is currently detaining at least five journalists as a means to limit the media.

Yesterday, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (R) signed a bill that would make Indiana the first state to defund Planned Parenthood. In April, the state Senate and House voted to cut about $2 million in federal money that goes to Planned Parenthood, much of which is for Medicaid services. The bill also calls for a ban on all abortions after 20 weeks, which would dramatically restrict women’s access to abortion services.

Following the bill signing, the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed a request for an injunction in the US District Court to block the bill from being enforced. Betty Cockrum, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Indiana stated, “PPIN will continue to fight on behalf of the thousands of patients at our 28 health centers around the state who count on PPIN for health care. We have an obligation to stand with our low-income patients who rely on government funding to receive Pap tests, birth control, STD testing and treatment. We want to ensure that they receive care from their preferred provider – Planned Parenthood of Indiana.”

Lawmakers in Kansas and North Carolina are attempting to pass similar legislation that would take away all funding for Planned Parenthood, and are expected to vote on their proposed budgets in the coming weeks. In February, the U.S. House Republicans, led by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), voted for a Continuing Resolution that would prohibit any federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood, even in reimbursement for services rendered. In spite of Republican claims that the purpose of the Pence amendment was to prohibit taxpayer funding of abortions, such spending is already prohibited by federal law.

Following vocal condemnation from US political leaders, human rights groups, and activists, the Uganda Parliament decided to drop an anti-gay bill, which would impose life sentences or the death penalty for gay people. The bill went before the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee on Friday and was originally scheduled for a vote today before it was dropped from the Parliament’s agenda.

David Bahati, a member of the Ugandan Parliament and one of the principle leaders of the Family or Fellowship of C Street fame (see Jeff Sharlet’s latest book on C Street), first introduced the bill in 2009. Bahati stated that a new version of the bill exists, which does not call for the death penalty, although that version has not been publically released.

Michelle Kagari, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Africa, stated, “It is deeply alarming that the Ugandan parliament is again considering this appalling bill, which flies in the face of human decency and violates international human rights law.”

Graeme Reid, LGBT rights director at Human Rights Watch, clarified, “The Anti-Homosexuality Bill and the government’s violent crackdown on peaceful protests seen in recent weeks are evidence of a diminishing space for human rights in Uganda. We strongly urge the Ugandan parliament to reject the bill immediately.”

Homosexuality is illegal in most African countries with the exception of South Africa, which recognizes gay marriage, but even there, anti-gay practices such as “corrective rapes” on lesbians, are commonplace.

Also in Uganda yesterday, hundreds of anti-government protestors, participating in “Walk to Work” demonstrations against the high prices of commodities and fuel, were sprayed by police and military officials with a pink liquid. Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power for 25 years, announced his plans to change the law to deny bail to arrested protestors.

The Obama administration defended the constitutionality of the 2010 health care act Tuesday before a panel of three federal appeals court judges in a Virginia courtroom. All three randomly selected judges, two of which were appointed by President Obama himself, indicated they are likely to uphold the healthcare law.

Supporters and opponents of the law gathered outside of the federal courthouse throughout the proceedings. The hearing centered on the question of Congress’ constitutional authority in regulating interstate commerce in the health care law’s mandate that individuals obtain health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty.

The lawsuits, brought separately by the state of Virginia and by Liberty University, a private religious school founded by Jerry Falwell, are just two of 30 filed across the country challenging the federal law. An Atlanta appeals court is set to hear oral arguments next month on a challenge filed jointly by 26 states. This particular provision has been previously challenged in Virginia, as well as in Florida and Michigan. This hearing, however, marked the first time any of the lawsuits filed against the law has reached the appellate level.

Currently under the health care act, certain preventive procedures, such as mammograms, colonoscopies, pap smears, tobacco cessation services, and obesity prevention services, no longer require a co-payment or other direct costs. President Obama signed the final version of the health care act in March. The final law will eventually add coverage for 32 million people, increasing access to family planning and preventive care.

Di Tzeitung, an Orthodox Jewish newspaper based in Brooklyn, released a statement yesterday to apologize for deleting Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Counterterrorism Director Audrey Tomason from a photograph of President Obama and the national security team in the White House Situation Room during the capture of Osama bin Laden. Di Tzeitung stated that it does not publish pictures of women, in accordance with its editorial policy, but apologized for violating a White House policy that prohibits alterations to the pictures.

Robin Bodner, executive director of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, told CNN, “This picture by [an ultra-Orthodox] newspaper goes a step further by revising history to remove important women leaders from the historic room in which they were present. It reminds us of how much work is still to be done!”

Di Tzeitung stated, “Because we wanted to honor the President and our armed forces for the historical significance of the moment, we opted to publish the photo, but without the women included, as is our long standing editorial policy. Our editorial policies are guided by a Rabbinical Board and because of laws of modesty, does not allow for the publishing of photos of women.”

Yesterday Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) announced that she will file a request that the US Supreme Court overturn the April ruling of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which upheld US District Judge Susan Bolton’s ruling to block portions of Arizona’s immigration law. The three judge panel ruled that Judge Bolton “did not abuse” her power in her decision to block portions of the law.

Governor Brewer stated that the federal government failed to effectively enforce immigration law and that the Arizona immigration law would assist federal authorities in doing so. However, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals clarified that the Supreme Court will likely find the Arizona immigration law unconstitutional since it challenges the Congressional right of the federal government to be the sole authority over immigration.

In July, Judge Bolton ruled against multiple sections of the Arizona law, including a requirement that police check the immigration status of criminal suspects that they had stopped while enforcing other laws and a provision that would make it a crime not to carry immigration papers. She also ruled against a section that would make it a crime for undocumented workers to seek a job.

A New York City audit released last week revealed that women seeking mammograms from New York public hospitals have to undergo harmfully long waits. The audit recorded the waiting times at 9 hospitals for the 2009 fiscal year and found that Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens to have the longest waits for women seeking mammograms. At Elmhurst, some women waited almost five months for routine mammograms and 50 working days for diagnostic mammograms, performed when breast cancer is suspected.

New York City policies recommend that people seeking routine screenings wait no more than two weeks. John Liu, the city comptroller stated, “For years, City policy has emphasized the need for women to get mammograms. Unfortunately, significant shortfalls and lapses at City hospitals have undercut that intent and worse yet placed women in jeopardy.”

The National Cancer Institute recommends that women over the age of 40 receive annual mammograms.

Iowa legislators are scheduled to vote this week on a bill (HF 657) that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of gestation. The bill, which passed the House last March but stalled in the Senate, is aimed at preventing Dr. LeRoy Carhart from opening a clinic in Council Bluffs, where he would offer late-term abortions. 26 state Senators signed a petition last week to move the bill to the Senate for a debate as early as Thursday.

Senate Majority leader Michael Gronstal (D), from Council Bluffs, could still block the debate on the bill. He released a statement saying he supports abortion rights but opposes abortion provider Dr. Carhart’s efforts to open a clinic in Iowa.

According to the AP, Gronstal’s decision could decide the fate of the bill, which Governor Terry Branstad (R) has said he would sign.

According to a study published in Fertility and Sterility, since emergency contraception (EC) became available to women without a prescription, the number of women using EC has doubled. The study, written by Megan Kavanaugh, a senior researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, found that after EC became available without a prescription in 2006, 10 percent of the 6,300 sexually active women studied, between 15-44, reported using it, as compared to 4 percent prior to 2006.

Only 3 percent of the women reported that their doctors had discussed EC with them. Kavanaugh encouraged women to consult with their doctors about the use of EC in pregnancy prevention. She noted that the use of emergency contraception, “still seems relatively low, given that it’s easy to access.”

Levonorgestrel, sold under the brand name Plan B, is a form of emergency contraception that must be taken within 72 hours of sexual activity. Emergency contraception or the “morning-after” pill is available over the counter to women over the age of 17 in the United States.

According to the 2011 India census, the country continues to have a disproportionate rate of abortions of female fetuses. For every 1,000 male children under the age six, there are only 914 girls. Malnourishment and the neglect of girls also contribute to this unequal sex ratio. This is the largest imbalance between boys and girls since the country gained its independence in 1947.

Sandeep Chachra, executive director of ActionAid India, stated “This confirms our worst fears. Something that we and many others have been warning about for several years now, it is a shame for the entire country. It is time to move away from patchy responses and look at the larger picture to evolve a stronger strategy to change the status quo.” According to a 2007 study published by ActionAid India, sex-selective abortions occur more frequently in wealthy areas, among high-caste people, which discredits the argument that parents seek sex-selective abortions solely due to the cost of dowries for their daughters.

Although in 1994 the India government prohibited the use of sonograms to reveal the sex of the fetus, laws and government initiatives have had little effect at reducing the sex disparity. Ravinder Kaur, Sociology professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, clarified, “in a society that values boys over girls,” laws to prevent sex-selective abortions are of limited value.

Yesterday all House Republicans and 16 Democrats voted to pass HR 3, the “No Tax Payer Funding for Abortion Act.” The bill, which purports to prohibit taxpayer funding of abortions and ensure that healthcare reform law does not cover the cost of abortions, is misleading and punitive. Currently, because of the Hyde Amendment, there is no federal funding of abortion. The bill will now go to the Senate for a vote, where it likely will not pass.

HR 3 prohibits a military person from paying for an abortion with her own money in a military hospital. Moreover, employers who have private insurance plans that include abortion coverage would have to pay tax penalties, and federal workers who pay their own insurance premiums out of pocket would nonetheless be prohibited from having abortion coverage in their insurance. HR 3 would take the premium assistance promised by health reform away from people who choose a private insurance plan with abortion coverage.

Reproductive Rights activists, including Feminist Majority Foundation organizers, and members of the organizations DC Vote and the DC Abortion Fund, along with several city council members, protested the bill on Wednesday evening at Capitol Hill. The protest was focused on HR3’s permanent ban on the District’s ability to use local funds for abortions, as well as the general federalizing of D.C. government and funds. Council member Mary Cheh and 7 other women activists were arrested for blocking traffic during the protest. The groups hope to continue putting pressure on Congress and plan to hold a similar protest next Wednesday, May 11.

Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, stated “True to form, the House majority has cast a wide net in its attack on women’s health and rights – this time, trying to use the tax code to eradicate all insurance coverage for abortion. This move is the height of hypocrisy, because politicians who regularly rail against big government today voted to raise taxes on millions of families and small businesses – merely to stop them from purchasing insurance plans that cover abortion.”

In Illinois, a bill requiring sex education teachers to instruct students about both contraception and abstinence fell short by one vote in the state Senate yesterday. Conservative groups protested a provision in the bill that would require the information presented in sex education to be age appropriate and “medically accurate,” claiming that pre-marital sex should not be taught in the classroom. The legislation would not have required schools to teach sex education.

Comprehensive family planning services, like those funded by Title X, are not only based in medically accurate information but are proven to prevent unintended pregnancies and limit the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), while they save taxpayers’ money.

In honor of Mother’s Day, Save the Children released its 12th annual Mothers Index report,“Champions for Children: Why Investing in Maternal and Child Health in Developing Countries is Good for America,” which rated 164 countries to determine the best countries in which to be a mother. The rating was based on maternal and child mortality rates, women’s life expectancy, maternity leave, and women’s education. It found Norway to be the best place to be a mother and Afghanistan the worst.

In Afghanistan, women have an average life expectancy of 45 and approximately 1 out of every 11 (which was 1 out of 8) women dies during childbirth. Moreover, Afghan women are 200 more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than from bombings or bullets. Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, stated, “Thirty years of war in Afghanistan has destroyed the health care system. Plus there is an acute shortage of clear water and sanitation and adequate nutrition in Afghanistan.”

Mary Beth Powers, chief of Save the Children’s Newborn and Child Survival Campaign, stated, “In many countries, vaccines, antibiotics, and care during pregnancy are hard to reach and as a result child and maternal death rates are very high. This Mother’s Day, world leaders should honor mothers everywhere by ensuring they can celebrate what they want most- healthy children. That means helping all families, moms and babies be within reach of a trained health worker.”

The United States placed 31st out of the 44 industrialized countries that were rated, primarily due to its higher maternal and infant mortality and morbidity rate in its highly populated inner city areas. According to the report, women in the US are 7 times more likely to die during childbirth, especially women of color, than women in Italy or Ireland. In addition, 8 out of every 1,000 children born in the US die before reaching age 5. Current maternity leave in Europe, which is paid, far surpasses the Family and Medical Leave Act in the US, which only provides for 12 weeks of unpaid leave.

A U.S. District Court judge ruled last week in favor of a woman who was shackled while giving birth at a Tennessee jail in 2008. Juana Villegas had been arrested and charged with careless driving and driving without insurance in July of 2008 when her immigration status showed that she had a prior deportation order to her native Mexico. She was taken into custody and went into labor two days later.

Villegas sued the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office after being shackled by the arms and legs throughout giving birth, including the final stages of labor and directly after. She was not allowed to have a breast pump or cream for lactating mothers in her cell, and was separated from her newborn son for two days. The judge ruled in her favor, saying that shackling Villega during the final stages of her labor violated her civil rights, and noting that she was “neither a risk of flight nor a danger to anyone.”

In their effort to combat the lawsuit, Davidson County sheriff’s office justified her shackling by citing testimony on the “danger of illegal immigrants fleeing and engaging in illegal activities.” Davidson County participates in a controversial program 278(g), which deputizes local police to investigate the immigration status of people they’ve arrested. Villegas’ attorney, Elliot Ozmet, said that typically when someone is unable to produce a driver’s license, they are given a citation, but in this particular case the officer decided to take her into custody.

“I was in jail when my water broke,” Villegas recalled. “They took me in an ambulance and cuffed my hands and feet. When we got to the hospital, they moved me to the bed and cuffed this hand and foot to the bed.” The medical staff requested that she not be restrained at all, warning that she may get blood clots from the leg irons, but the officers refused.

The National Women’s Law Center released a report in 2010 on the status of mothers in prison, and reported that 36 states fail to comprehensively limit, or limit at all, the use of restraints on pregnant women during transportation, delivery and postpartum recuperation. Only ten states have laws that address shackling. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention currently has no prohibitions on shackling pregnant detainees. Amnesty International and the Rebecca Project for Human Rights are leading nationwide efforts to end the practice of shackling pregnant women during labor.

Although Villegas has won her case, she has been denied a request to stay in the U.S. by the 6th Court of Appeals, so she once again faces the threat of deportation.