On International Women's Day we honor and celebrate the leadership of women most impacted by militarization, poverty, and other forms of violence and call for the creation of gender-responsive legislation to address the specific challenges that women and girls face at all migration stages.

We also honor the decades’-long  struggle to enact rights-based change and secure justice for all migrants. At NNIRR, we recognize the amazing impact of women on our team, among our partners and in our movement.

Last year our Spotlight Report on the Borderlands called for a deeper understanding of the intersectional consequences of militarization and border control on women in terms of increased mortality rates, sexual and gender-based violence, and further criminalization of  migration. 

Today, the epicenter for racial policing and anti-immigrant enforcement is the state of Texas, where the governor is spearheading a hostile, xenophobic initiative. Border communities, specifically since the state’s enactment of Operation Lone Star in 2017, are regularly subjected to arbitrary arrest, unlawful detentions, and unwarranted fines. The excessive presence of military and enforcement personnel deeply impacts the ability to access critical health care, continue education, and other fundamental services – exacerbating the multiple oppressions already experienced by migrant women.

Through our recent BRIDGE Human Rights Leadership Institutes, NNIRR is proud to be working with grassroots leaders and organizations on  the frontlines of the most entrenched injustices that pervade in the US-Mexico border region. The Institutes for Human Rights Leadership has already helped train 115 grassroots leaders, mostly women of color from thirteen cities along the Texas-Mexico borderlands.

From this perspective, and in this moment of crisis, we urge Congress to make bold changes to the inherent dysfunctions and injustices embedded in the migration system.

We call upon the Biden administration and the immigrant rights community to reject security paradigms that rely heavily on militarization and deprive our communities of basic necessities, and directly subject women and girls to various forms of violence and human rights abuses. We further urge Congress and the Biden administration to implement the following:

1. Guarantee the human rights of all migrant women and girls regardless of migratory status, including LGBTQI women and girls. 
2. Protect women and girls from gender-based violence in all stages of migration, including on countries of origin,  transit, and destination. 
3. Ensure access to services, including access to mental, health, and sexual health services for all women.
4. Protect Family unity. Increase access to visas and programs to reunify families and an end to deportation programs that systematically separate families.
5. Increase inclusive, gender-sensitive, rights-based regular pathways to migration.  Ensure rights based-pathways with access to permanent residency, full labor rights, family reunification, and citizenship for migrant women and people in migration.
6. Decriminalize migration. End the practice of immigration detention of children and families.   
7. Regularize the status of ALL women, migrants and their families and allow them to meaningfully and safely integrate into the social, economic, and cultural lives of our communities.
8. Investigate and hold accountable all border patrol agents responsible for engaging in gender-based violence, sexual exploitation, sexual harassment, and other forms of abuse against women, girls, and gender non-conformning peoples in situations of vulnerability.

 In solidarity, 

The NNIRR Team  

Support NNIRR!

Every contribution makes a difference. We are deeply grateful for your solidarity and partnership.

Your contributions support NNIRR to:

• Advocate for immigration policy that centers human rights
• Lift up grassroots leadership, organizing, and advocacy
• Spotlight human rights organizing at the US-Mexico border
• Advocate for international migrant rights & human rights at borders
• Organize at the intersections of gender, climate justice, and migrant rights