Abstract

Excerpted From: Valeria Gomez, The New Abortion Borders for Immigrant Women, 43 Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality 1 (Spring, 2025) (373 Footnotes) (Full Document)

Since the Supreme Court of the United States eliminated the fundamental right to an abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the ability to access an abortion has increasingly depended on where a person lives. After the Dobbs decision, numerous states enacted legislation restricting abortion access and criminalized the provision of abortion care and the distribution and consumption of abortifacient medication, resulting in a geographic patchwork of laws on reproductive healthcare and abortion deserts that span hundreds of square miles. Because abortion access increasingly depends on a person's physical location, abortion travel has become a central focus of advocacy and fundraising, with the aim of transporting pregnant people in need of abortion care from states with abortion-restrictive laws to states, territories, and even countries where abortions are still lawfully accessible and available.

While a large-scale mobilization effort may very well allow many women and pregnant people to access abortion-related services, reproductive justice advocates must intentionally consider the ways that mobilization efforts fail to serve certain marginalized communities. Among these marginalized communities are noncitizen immigrants, particularly those present without authorization or with an uncertain immigration status, whose movements are surveilled, policed, restricted, obstructed, compelled, and criminalized by state and federal laws and policies in ways that make them uniquely vulnerable to suffering severe consequences for their attempts to access abortion care. Absent such intentional consideration, abortion-access mobilization efforts may further marginalize or even harm the very people they aim to serve.

This paper aims to build on the existing literature addressing the effects of abortion-restricting legislation on the freedom of immigrant women to make decisions about their reproductive health care and family structure. The paper focuses on how the new and expanding patchwork of state laws creates de facto internal borders that trap and uniquely limit the reproductive freedom of those present in the United States without citizenship status. In particular, this paper exposes a different angle of the injustices resulting from the Dobbs decision by detailing the unique geographic barriers to immigrant mobility resulting from federal and state laws and policies, including immigration detention policies, post-release surveillance programs, and other immigration enforcement practices that restrict, control, surveil, and punish noncitizens' movements within the United States. Using a reproductive justice and feminist geography lens, this paper will situate current U.S. law and policy within a tradition of historical policies aimed at interfering with immigrant women's ability to exercise agency in their family lives. Lastly, this paper will illustrate how the interplay of current federal and state laws on reproductive healthcare and immigration enforcement policy continues a legacy of subjugation through the policing of the bodies, families, and reproductive choices of immigrants.

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Migration control fundamentally revolves around the control of movement, and this control becomes particularly invasive when directed at pregnant immigrant bodies. Current immigration policies do not only limit physical movement; when combined with a patchwork of state laws that restrict abortion-related healthcare, they also impede immigrants' autonomy over their health and family decisions. By treating the bodies of pregnant immigrants as sites for immigration enforcement, these policies extend the reach of migration control into the intimate realm of reproductive health. This form of control curtails the ability of immigrants to make crucial decisions about their health and the shape of their families, illustrating a deeply entrenched intersection of immigration enforcement and reproductive regulation.

The results of the 2024 presidential election have only intensified this reality. With the Trump administration's stated goals of escalating immigration enforcement and curtailing reproductive rights, the intersection of oppressions faced by immigrants, particularly those capable of pregnancy, is set to deepen. Immigration detention, surveillance, and localized enforcement practices like border-zone checkpoints and 287(g) programs already restrict physical movement and amplify barriers to accessing reproductive healthcare. Now, under an administration committed to increasing both immigration enforcement and restrictions on reproductive autonomy, the risks and vulnerabilities faced by immigrant communities will likely escalate. The threat of detention, deportation, and punitive measures for seeking reproductive healthcare will not only endanger the physical and mental health of noncitizens but also further isolate them from critical support systems.

When viewed through the lens of feminist geography and reproductive justice, the unique challenges faced by immigrants under these policies become even more stark. Feminist geography underscores how control over physical movement and space translates into broader social and political domination, particularly for marginalized groups. Reproductive justice, with its emphasis on the right to have children, not have children, and parent children in safe and sustainable environments, exposes how immigration enforcement and reproductive restrictions jointly undermine these rights for immigrant communities. Pregnant immigrants navigating a web of immigration surveillance and restrictive abortion laws are forced to contend with an environment where their bodies are simultaneously politicized and criminalized.

This moment calls for urgent action. Reproductive justice advocates must recognize and respond to the interconnected nature of immigration policy and reproductive health regulation. Advocacy efforts must address not only the systemic barriers to abortion access, but also the broader structures of surveillance and enforcement that disproportionately target immigrants. Collaborative approaches that bridge reproductive justice and immigrant rights frameworks are essential to dismantling these systems of oppression. Advocates must engage in federal, state, and local policy advocacy to resist efforts to further restrict reproductive and migratory autonomy. They should also invest in community-based support networks that provide resources, legal assistance, and healthcare access to immigrant populations.

To ensure that reproductive freedom is truly accessible to all, the movement must center the experiences and leadership of immigrant communities. This includes amplifying the voices of immigrant women and gender-diverse individuals who are directly affected by these intersecting oppressions. By adopting an intersectional approach and building coalitions across movements, reproductive justice advocates can challenge the dual control of movement and bodily autonomy imposed by the state, working toward policies that respect and uphold the dignity and agency of all individuals, regardless of citizenship status.

Assistant Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law.