While this is not particularly birth related, it definitely falls into the social justice arena when so many people are affected. Read more about the fire on my post at Feministing and donate some money if you are able.
Fire displaces hundreds in Mt. Pleasant
March 14, 2008
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immigration, news | 
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Posted by radicaldoula
Pregnant New Mexico Teenager Arrested and Deported
December 13, 2007This is ridiculous and just proof that the administration’s haphazard immigration crackdown is ineffective and completely unjust.
U.S. immigration officials deported a pregnant Roswell High School senior after she was pulled from class Wednesday by a local police officer regarding a traffic ticket issued days before.
She was only 18, and who knows what happened to her when she was sent back to Mexico. Frequently these individuals no longer have ties in their country of origin, and this girl’s mother remains in New Mexico. This kind of thing isn’t going to strengthen “security” or immigration enforcement, and it is a blatant violation of human rights. The detention centers that people are sent to while in the process of being deported are often jails that have been “converted” into detention centers.
These kinds of stories just keep coming, along with ones about women who are separated from their infants, many times who suffer from dehydration and complications from the disruption of breastfeeding.
For more information about the immigration justice movement, http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/.
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Posted by radicaldoula
Woman gives birth on US/Mexico Border
September 11, 2007This story from the Houston Chronicle online reports that a border patrol agent helped a woman give birth on the banks of the Rio Grande River, on the border between Texas and Mexico.
The story is brief, and simply reports that the agent does not know whether the woman and the man accompanying her were undocumented or not, but this is just one example of what immigration in this country has devolved into.
A few years ago I worked as an advocate for Latina immigrant women in Pennsylvania, most of whom were here without documents. I helped them find prenatal care, apply for emergency medical assistance and care for their newborn children. The stories that I would hear from these women were terrifying. The trials and tribulations of crossing the border, usually in unsafe conditions, quite of few of them pregnant while crossing.
One can only imagine the desperation that would lead a woman to attempt such a crossing at nine months pregnant. One woman I worked with had ridden for hours in the trunk of a car with a few other men to cross. Countless women are abused by the people they pay (huge sums) to bring them over (called coyotes), as well as their travelling partners and I’m sure some border patrol officials once they arrive in the United States. Death rates on the border are high, with people getting lost in the desert, and dying of starvation and dehydration.
The situation with immigration continues to deteriorate, and Bush’s calls to heighten border security and build million dollar fences will not alleviate the problem. We need humane and reasonable immigration policies, that don’t discriminate against the people we rely on for manual labor, who keep this country running by working in the factories, fields, restaurants and hotels.
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Posted by radicaldoula
