by Laura Jiménez
In recent months, through the chaos and devastation of a deadly global pandemic, an economic recession, and endemic police violence, the daily news cycle has become the source of unending feelings of rage and sadness, and provokes a constant sense of urgency. Last week, we learned about a whistleblower’s report thatimmigrant women detained by ICE have been subjected to forced sterilizations in a Georgia detention center.
As a Latina reproductive justice advocate, I was horrified, but not shocked. State-sanctioned, forced sterilizations targeting immigrant women—many of whom were Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC)—have beenviolently normalized throughout our nation’s history. Reproductive oppression, the coordinated and institutionalized attacks on the health and bodily autonomy of Latinas/x families and communities persists to this day—not just through forced sterilizations, but also systemic racism, violence, and neglect in the health system that have led toLatinx folks and immigrants facing the highest rates of COVID-19 infection and death.