Earlier today, we summarized a news article, describing the groundbreaking research of ARC’s (Applied Research Center) “Shattered Families” Report. After reading the entire report, however, I am posting this link to the actual report and executive summary, because I feel it poignantly captures the damaging effects most of us never think about, when we discuss Secure Communities.
Having worked in the field of domestic violence and having seen firsthand the struggles and the effects of additional barriers to seeking help for domestic abuse, that are associated with being a Latina migrant worker, I also saw the effects these anti-immigrant laws (such as GA HB-87) were having on survivors of domestic violence. Without these laws, Latina migrant women, like many other women across the United States, were already disinclined to report domestic abuses, due to fear of losing their children, hope that their situation would improve, and fear of being hurt or killed. However, it is well-known that there are many intersecting factors that hinder women from reporting violence or escaping their situations of abuse, including religious beliefs, cultural beliefs, poverty, and geographic locations. Some religions and cultures, for example, stress the sanctity of marriage to the point where it is taboo to divorce or separate, which introduces shame and isolation from support communities. Rural poverty also contributes to feelings of isolation in many communities, due to lack of transportation, physical distance from support centers, and economic dependency on their partners, among other factors.
To these barriers, I will add immigrant status. Being undocumented, or dealing with the stress of a partner or family member, who is undocumented, creates an increased sense of fear and helplessness. Abusers can easily use their partners’ fear of being deported to manipulate them into not leaving, not reporting abuse, not acquiring outside economic or social support, and doing exactly as they are told. Undocumented immigrant victims of abuse live in constant fear, which creates incredible emotional stress, depression, and sometimes even leads to suicide. Their children are also prone to depression and other psychosocial stress and are often also abused. For many women, their children’s abuse becomes the breaking point, but especially in areas without support centers that have translators, or without public safety officials, who do not engage in racial discrimination and/or cultural insensitivity, these women are utterly helpless, fearing that police intervention will bring deportation.
I would like to stress here that while these women may be undocumented, many had limited choice in coming to this country. In some cases, the women crossed the border to finally be with their husbands, who were working in the fields. In other instances, victims of domestic violence have been brought to this country entirely against their will by abusive partners. (In most Latin American countries, domestic violence is not considered a crime. And even when it is, corruption among law enforcement often prevents the law from protecting women against violence.) Other women had nothing left back home or where in fact escaping from abuse or an inability to feed their children, and came here for an opportunity to support their families or simply survive. Due to dire economic situations, some felt they had no other choice but to leave their children behind with family members, sending a check every month as remittance. In crossing the border, many become victims of gender-based violence, as they trek their way through costly, dangerous, often life-threatening conditions and surroundings under the terms of coyotes (human traffickers), who often physically, sexually, and emotionally abuse them. Knowing the risks ahead of them, these women decide to cross the border out of the most wretched desperation and a most profound love for their families.
When they cross the border, these women keep to themselves, scared of directing attention to themselves and their immigrant status. They rarely visit the doctor. (One woman I met had suffered through migraines and the pain of tooth decay for several months, before finally seeing a dentist. Despite needing a root canal, she postponed the surgery, because she could not yet afford it.). They don’t qualify for and don’t seek out public benefits. They don’t complain through sexual harassment and other work abuses. Like many other women living in poverty, they work service jobs and sometimes physically grueling labor for very little pay and no benefits. They will never reap the benefits of the social security, medicare, and other social programs they pay into. Others cannot work because their children are too young to go to school and they cannot afford childcare. This makes those in abusive partnerships and marriages even more dependent on their abusers. And so, they wait desperately till their children are old enough, or get part-time jobs or domestic positions that allow them to bring their children in to work. (In 2006, undocumented immigrants paid $7 billion in social security taxes, and in 2010, the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) has estimated that undocumented immigrant households paid $11.2 billion in state and local taxes. http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/just-facts/unauthorized-immigrants-pay-taxes-too) In the eyes of these women, who have carried their crosses in silence, sacrificing everything they could in the name of love, duty, responsibility, and survival, you will not be able to mistake the strained, haunting gaze for that of a “lazy immigrant.” You will understand that within this gaze lies the traces of hopelessness and trauma so deep, young women can often appear twice their age. But if you look for just another moment, you will also see a waterfall of hope and determination in dreams that their children might have a better life.
To those who say that they should have gone to the back of the line and gotten across the border, like other “good” immigrants, I ask you this: Do you not think that if it were simply a matter of waiting their turn in a line, that these immigrants would much rather forget the fear of deportation, and the dangers, cost, and hardships of crossing the border “illegally,” in favor of applying through legal channels? There are large restrictions to applying for legal entry into the U.S., with the number of green cards available for low-skilled workers limited to a mere 5,000 a year. There are slots for political refugees, but only for citizens of a few countries with political unrest. There are no slots for economic refugees. Otherwise, immigrants have opportunities to come here through work or familial sponsorship, and even these methods are constricted to those with high levels of education or come with an indefinite timeline. For instance, an immigrant with a green card must wait at least five years before applying for a green card for her minor child. The timeline for the application process varies. For U.S. citizens, there is a 16-year wait period before a Mexican married son or daughter can apply for a green card. Further, U.S. citizens can only sponsor a very limited number of familial-based green cards over several years, and it is nearly impossible for their Mexican family members to even get permission to visit them in the U.S. (For more information, on the facts behind this fictitious line for legal entry, read this study by the Immigration Policy Center: http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/docs/WhyDontTheyGetInLine03-08.pdf)
Without a feasible means of legal entry, these women risk everything to come and survive, suffering through physical, emotional, and often sexual abuse at home and, for some, even at their workplaces. With the new hostile immigration policies (Secure Communities, AZ SB-1070, GA HB-87, AL HB 56, and soon SC SB-20) that are spreading through the country, these women face even more precarious situations, as they become even more afraid of law enforcement. U-Visa and VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) legislation were designed to help immigrant abuse victims out of their abusive situations by allowing them to apply for a visa, if they help put their abuser in jail or if they have been abused by a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. However, despite efforts at educating them on such laws, these women no longer trust the system (and perhaps rightfully so), as they see their neighbors’ families being torn apart around them, hear of increased deportations, and in states like Georgia and Alabama, suddenly find themselves out of work. They have been here, struggling in silence for years. Despite all the hardships, they have established their life here and are grateful for the opportunities they would not have otherwise had. America is their home, and the home of their children.
Now, we, who work with domestic violence support groups, can no longer with complete confidence tell them that they will not lose their children, if they report abuse. We can no longer assure them that they and their children will be safe, because we know that policies like Secure Communities and state laws, that open the door for racial profiling and abuse of human rights, exist. According to the Applied Research Center, “immigrant victims of gender-based violence are at particular risk of losing their children to foster care.” ARC reports of numerous cases, in which “police arrested victims of domestic violence while investigating a report of abuse.” So instead of assurance, they are now “faced with an impossible choice: remain with an abuser or risk detention and loss of their children.” And when these women are caught, sent to detention centers, what we now know to be true is continued abuse, sexual, physical, and emotional, from guards at immigrant detention centers (See this article http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/02/15/us-protect-detainees-immigration-facilities-rape and the Frontline Documentary, “Lost in Detention”). Is this the same America that inspired the sonnet engraved on a bronze plaque inside the Statue of Liberty? Have we really merited the lines “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” What I am hearing now-a-days is:
“Send back these tired, these poor,
These huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send back the homeless, tempest-tost, regardless of their pleas.
I lift my lamp beside security cameras, electric fences~ to show my borders
reinforced.”
In the current anti-immigrant climate, these women not only continue to be victims of violence from individual abusers, but also from an entire system of economic and social oppression, that are the effects of Mexican and U.S. policies. Where would you even begin to heal from these layers upon layers of abuse? How would you even begin to accept that for all the sacrifices made, the sweat, the tears, the despair, the disappointed hopes upon disappointed hopes, for all the struggle to simply live in freedom, in peace, you will never escape the chains of abuse, of poverty, of inequality, of rejection? And how could you, knowing these real stories, these real effects of insensitive legislation, sit there and watch the tears streaming down of a woman, who after years of struggle and abuse, finally discovered a loving relationship with her husband, only to wind up alone, with her children, who are not yet school-age, while her husband is deported? What would you say to that? And how could you sit there and do nothing?
*For those who view this issue as the product of a flawed system, please go to our action page (Under the Overview tab) and write to your congressmen and local officials. If no pressure is applied, nothing will get done. Thank you!
~Zulema Ibarra, IRN Director of Outreach
