Brett Kavanaugh was appointed as the Justice of the US Supreme Court in 2018, despite many protests coming after women blamed him for sexual misconduct. White women might have made a big gasp throughout the nation, but people of color let out a shrug and sigh. Tarana Burke’s Me Too movement gave women an opportunity to voice their complaints regarding sexual assault. White women’s grievances regarding it were expressed aggressively in the nation’s highest judicial court and blared on TV screens across the nation.
Back then, people wondered when the complaints from undocumented women victims, in transit, detection or domestic jobs, would be widely known with such massive media presence and support.
Several women under dangerous circumstances hesitated to report their sexual abuse instances for their fears of getting deported. The National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights argued that women who lived illegally in this nation were often put in greater vulnerability situations, and that policy could deprive them of justice. That statement correlated with 2017 rape case drops that Latinx reported in major city communities, including Houston and LA communities.
When Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained undocumented women, they faced dangers from inside the system. As per an Intercept article, there were 1,224 grievances regarding sexual misconduct and abuse, and 50% of those came from ICE’s workers.
In Orange County (OC), it was safe to say that several undocumented women were also living with unpleasant memories of what they experienced back then. Transgender women were detained at Santa Ana’s jail, in which they were put through triggering and violating strip searches, and then their contracts with ICE were terminated. Besides that, several women who lived in the nation were doing domestic and hospitality work. That resulted in them being private quarter residents in most cases.
Sexual assault being prevalent in those two industries is a matter that keeps evading the nationwide debate. Undocumented women handle the intersectional and oppressive systems daily.
Nevertheless, immigrant rights advocates kept doing what they do in a determined way in OC. Several local attorneys and organizations made a rapid response team for deportation; they ensure prioritizing the most at-risk cases. Moreover, when it comes to hospitality employees and domestic workers, unions could be of use to them, yet they should be ready to address those issues. They should make labor rights the central point in undocumented women’s needs.
Besides positing feminism as important to activism, Orange County Immigrant Youth United talked about what it had to look like. As for OCIYU member Christina, feminism meant this: to support and fight for the rights that women had not been previously given, to reclaim their voices to demand what they deserve.
The prevailing thought back in the day was this: If there was feminism, everyone should be a part of the fight to have immigrant rights.
