On Monday, September 8th, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo overturned a federal district court ruling that barred immigration officials in Los Angeles from conducting roving patrols that targeted Latino communities without “reasonable suspicion.” The concurring opinion from Justice Kavanaugh states that “apparent ethnicity” can be a “relevant factor” for ICE to conduct immigration stops, along with “speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent,” location, and type of employment. Essentially, SCOTUS legalized the use of racial profiling in immigration raids.
This country has a long history of racial profiling in policing and immigration enforcement that the Supreme Court has played a role in enabling through cases like Whren v. United States, which allowed police to conduct, often racially motivated, pretextual traffic stops. This week’s decision also comes 2 years after the ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard banned race-conscious college admissions that were meant to promote equal educational and employment opportunity for groups that were historically underrepresented due to systemic discrimination, resulting in sharp declines in diversity on campuses, particularly impacting Black, Latino, and Indigenous students.
Institutional racism has been a rampant problem at the southern border for years, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s broad authority to operate regularly violates people’s civil and constitutional rights. The current administration’s dramatic expansion of immigration enforcement in the past 8 months has seen more than a 250% increase in daily arrests, masked agents abducting people off the streets, local law enforcement recruited to assist ICE, overcrowded detention centers with widespread illness and hunger, immigrants with no criminal record deported without due process to an El Salvador prison notorious for human rights violations, the targeting of immigrants in sanctuary cities and sensitive areas that were previously restricted like schools, churches, hospitals, and courthouses, and an executive order to end universal birthright citizenship.
As with all other crises, this harsh anti-immigrant campaign, aggravated by the Supreme Court decision, disproportionately harms women in immigrant communities, especially BIPOC, poor, and disabled women. Immigrant women, who make up 20% of early educators and 26% of direct care workers, are often pillars of their communities, yet are forced to live in fear while navigating a hostile immigration system that undermines their dignity, security, and livelihoods. Now that ICE can enter hospitals, immigrants are avoiding necessary medical care due to fears of being deported, including pregnant women and new mothers who may be dealing with acute issues, which doctors predict will lead to a rise in maternal mortality. Immigrant children’s health is also being impacted in multiple dimensions, even those who have American citizenship, due to being from mixed-status families.
This aggressive immigration crackdown has also been accompanied by an increase in gender-based and sexual violence. The most frequently reported issues in ICE detention are sexual assault against both adults and children, suicide attempts, and serious pregnancy complications, as women are denied access to reproductive healthcare, and a repealing of protections makes them more vulnerable to abusers who easily avoid accountability. Immigration officers in this new era are also masked, creating a new crisis of women being assaulted by individuals impersonating ICE agents.
All of these issues were pervasive even before the September 8th Supreme Court ruling, which will no doubt exacerbate them in a racially-targeted fashion. This decision also has implications beyond immigration, as it is a slippery slope from authorizing federal immigration enforcement to consider race and ethnicity in their stops in Los Angeles to race-based policing being normalized across the country. While the policy claims to be prioritizing public safety, the actual enforcement and effects appear to place cruelty and spectacle above security and effective immigration reform. It also opens the doors for further racialized harassment of immigrants in public spaces and the viewing of immigrant and Latino identities as inherently criminal, a view that many White Americans already hold.
It is in times like these that coming together to protect our communities becomes especially important. Immigration justice is a feminist issue, and feminist movements must engage in intersectional advocacy and organizing to challenge these attacks on immigrants’ rights and liberties. This year has seen a record number of protests in defense of immigrants erupt across all 50 states and Washington D.C., mobilized by networks of local grassroots organizations. City and state governments are also resisting by passing laws limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and supporting immigrant legal services. And while the Supreme Court’s order is devastating, it is not the end of the case, which is still pending appeal at the Ninth Circuit court. Sustained, collective action, at all levels of government and across the country, are necessary in this fight.