Take Action: Immigration Reform

1

Immigration Reform:
A Matter of Reproductive Justice

NLIRH recognizes that the reproductive health of immigrant women is profoundly affected by immigration policy.

Female immigrants are often forced to work in industries that are undervalued, underpaid, hazardous to one's health, lack basic worker protections and offer no benefits. Not surprisingly, a majority of female immigrants do not have health care coverage.

State legislatures continue to introduce legislation that would restrict non-citizens' access to basic public health programs, including prenatal care.

Immigrant women are less likely to receive adequate reproductive health care, including cervical and breast cancer screening and treatment, family planning services, HIV/AIDS testing and treatment, accurate sex education and culturally and linguistically competent services.

Reproductive health and rights organizations who promote the basic values of dignity, justice, and self-determination MUST speak out in support of the basic principles of immigration reform, which include a path to citizenship and protection for all immigrant families.

Reproductive Justice and Immigration Petition

We have created a petition for reproductive and women's rights organizations to sign-on to our statement on comprehensive immigration reform. We have 41 organizations signed on so far! Our goal is to support advocacy efforts around the immigration reform legislation by delivering the petition to congressional offices. See who has signed-on.

If your reproductive or women's rights organization is interested in signing on to the petition, email aishia@latinainstitute.org.

Legislative Update

The House and Senate have each passed immigration reform bills in the last Congressional session. The two bills are extremely different, and will now have to be reconciled in conference committee.

House bill (H.R. 4437): The House bill focuses only on border security and criminalizes immigrants and individuals who help them.
Senate bill (S. 2611): This bipartisan bill, while not perfect, does not criminalize immigrants and includes a path to citizenship.

What Our Activists Are Doing

In addition to participating in marches and rallies all over the country, our activists also gathered in Washington DC last May to talk to their representatives directly. At the National Advocacy Weekend, 20 activists from all around the country came together to speak about fair immigration reform. This group talked to more than 50 Senators and Congresspeople about how the immigration reform bills would affect their communities.