Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/series/dynamic-diaspora-women-and-immigration/)
Undocumented women with breast cancer in Arizona depend on community clinics and sliding scale fees to get services. For many, financial barriers and fear of deportation delay or prevent treatment, echoing problems nationwide.
Nebraska votes this month on a bill that would provide prenatal care for all pregnant, low-income women regardless of immigrant status. The governor says he plans to veto, because tax-funded programs should only benefit full citizens.
Graciela Beines endured two years of abuse by her ex-boyfriend out of fear of deportation. Now she wants others to know about the U visa, which permits immigrant victims of crimes to escape the violence and stay in the U.S.
A 2008 immigration raid in Iowa separated women from their children through arrest and deportation with, some say, the children’s fate left to chance. An immigration official refutes that, saying women with children were released on humanitarian grounds.
Immigrant women far outnumber men in English as a Second Language classes across the states. Helping school-age children is one big reason. So is gaining access to work.
In New York City, a food vendor celebrates her 20th Christmas without the documentation she needs to visit family back in Mexico. To her, the warm rice and hot tamales that she cooks and sells preserve the cultural connection every day.
After 19 months of detention following an ICE raid on an Iowa meat processing plant, about a dozen immigrant women continue to wear tracking devices on their ankles while federal officials decide their fate.
A shelter in Arizona offers a rare, bilingual, culturally-sensitive haven for battered immigrant Latina women. Now, it’s turning away women due to crushing demand.
