What's more, immigrant women bear the brunt of these anti-immigrant attacks. Take the issue of birthright citizenship. Since the early 1990s, this 14th Amendment right has been under assault by nativist organizations like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, who successfully lobbied Congress members to introduce legislation that would repeal and replace the Citizenship Clause with a provision that would restrict birthright citizenship to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. Over the years, restricting birthright citizenship has gained such popularity among conservative circles that the Republican party included it in their 1996 party platform. More recently, current and former Republican presidential candidates Ron Paul and Mitt Romney have voiced their support for ending this birthright. (Last month, Mike Huckabee was also reputed to support the effort to change our birthright citizenship laws, but later withdrew his support.)
What would it mean to end this right? Critics of birthright citizenship remain largely silent about the practical and legal consequences of implementing such a change, but it seems undeniable that eliminating this right would create an underclass of U.S. born children who are "aliens" in their own homeland. Restricting birthright citizenship to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents would mean that children born to undocumented immigrant women or immigrant women with temporary visas would have no status under the law. They will be neither immigrant nor citizen and lack a national identity. In essence, ending birthright citizenship would create a new classification that would only apply to the offspring of mostly immigrant women of color. Moreover, it is an outcome that would put our country hundreds of years back to the slave era, when the status of your birthmother determined your status as a slave or a free man.
Population growth is another issue that fuels anti-immigrant hysteria. News of a "baby boomlet" at the beginning of the year prompted unfair attacks against immigrant women and their child-bearing capacities. While economists lauded the news as a positive indicator for the country's future prosperity, leaders and supporters of the anti-immigrant movement interpreted it as a negative consequence of the country's "liberal" immigration laws. According to conservatives like John Vinson, president of the American Immigration Control Foundation, foreigners migrate to the U.S. because "[a U.S. born] child is an automatic American citizen, thus entitled to all benefits of American citizens. This gives a certain financial incentive for people coming from other countries illegally to have children here." Several conservative blogs and online comment boards similarly exploded with vitriolic attacks against immigrant women, blaming them for a range of social ills from "overpopulation" to the nation's current budget deficit.
Notably, the higher birth rates of Asian and Latina immigrant women are often unfavorably compared to the national average, yet little is mentioned of the high birth rates of certain predominantly-white religious groups, such as Mormons. In 2006, Utah, which is over 70% Mormon, reported an average birth rate of 19.2 births per 1,000 persons compared to the national average of 13.9 per 1,000 persons. The Church also encourages high fertility rates; according to orthodox Mormons, the ideal Mormon family should have about four children. In recent years, white fundamentalist Protestants have also seen a boost in birth rates as part of a little-known movement called "natalism." These suburb-loving families often include four or more children, concentrate in counties that are nearly 100% white and view parenthood as a calling. Yet, why haven't pundits or "population control" theorists called on Mormon or Christian fundamentalist women to control their ovaries?
That's because there's a political correlation between communities with high white fertility rates and the conservative vote. In 2004, George Bush carried the 19 states with the highest birth rates, while John Kerry took the 16 states with the lowest rates. It is not surprising then that conservatives like to detract attention away from their own childbearing patterns by accusing immigrant women of having too many children and burdening everything from the environment to the U.S. health care, tax, and public benefits systems (more myths that anti-immigrants like to promote). In short, the claim that the anti-immigrant movement is not a racist one is false. And it's another reason why the social justice movement must continue to work together to engage in anti-racist and anti-sexist advocacy.
]]>So what did the study point to as "proof" that there's no such thing as "immigrant family values?" It pointed to the high rate of single motherhood among immigrant women. The study, entitled, "Illegitimate Nation: An Examination of Out-of-wedlock Births Among Immigrants and Natives" takes a critical look at immigrant women (particularly Latinas) and frowns on the "bad" reproductive choices they've made.
Here are some of their findings:
Interestingly, the entire study is based on the premise that giving birth as an unwed woman is bad, while giving birth as a married woman is good. This is the same principle that has driven the conservative's decades-long movement to push marriage as the solution to a host of social problems including decreased welfare dependency and promiscuity. However, as reproductive justice advocates, we recognize that "family" comes in many shapes and sizes, and that marriage does little to "fix" the underlying factors that cause poverty.
Notably, the study also cites Daniel Patrick Moynihan's infamous 1965 report, "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action," which attacked the matriarchal structure of poor African-American families and proposed military enlistment for young black men as the solution to the "deterioration of the Negro family." Both the Moynihan report and the CIS study assume that nuclear family structures are the ideal standard and both dismiss alternative family structures—particularly those that are headed by single or unmarried women—as morally destructive and socially deviant.
In addition, it's important to note the more underhanded reason that the CIS study compares the out of wedlock birth rates of immigrant women to that of African-American women: to divide communities of color on the immigration debate. The sexual and reproductive decisions of women of color have always come under scrutiny, and the United States (along with many countries in the Global North) has a long history of trying to control the fertility of low-income women of color. As such, women's bodies have long been the political battleground for oppressive policy-making. Immigration reform is no different.
If reproductive justice means, as it does at NAPAWF, that women and girls have the right to make well-informed decisions about their bodies, health, sexualities, families, and communities, then we must ensure that feminist viewpoints are inserted loud and clear in the immigration debate. As the Senate continues debate on its compromise immigration bill—which proposes to remove most family-based categories for immigration, a process that has allowed most immigrant women to enter the U.S.—immigrant women may lose all hope of reuniting with their loved ones.
As the study suggests, immigrant motherhood is also seen as a national security threat. Conservatives view immigrant women's wombs as the gateway to anchor babies and so-called "chain migration." (Let me be clear that chain migration IS a myth; the average immigrant sponsors just 1.2 family members to the U.S.) Some liberal groups have also become critical of immigrant women of reproductive age because of the fear that immigrant families will trigger overpopulation. Yet the underlying concern in both camps is that immigrant women, on average, give birth to more children than non-immigrant women and therefore threaten to overcome the country's slowing (white) population. In an effort to deter immigrant women from giving birth, Congress has responded to these fears by introducing bills that would deny birthright citizenship, a right conferred by the 14th Amendment, to the children of undocumented women.
Clearly, immigrant rights and immigration reform are reproductive justice issues. We must stand together and ensure that all women, regardless of their citizenship status, have the ability to make healthy reproductive and life choices.
(For more on this perspective and an anti-violence take on the meaning of family, check out the Women of Color blog.)
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