Pramila Jayapal: Why Immigration Policy Is ‘Sexclusionary’ (and How To Fix It)

If you’ve been following the current debate and news coverage, you probably think that immigration reform is mainly about men—the undocumented males scaling border walls, working in agriculture, doing construction work and writing code. And when you do see women, they are normally portrayed either as helpless victims of detention or deportation or as conniving leeches delivering what anti-immigrants call “anchor babies.”

Between this male-centered media narrative, and the fact that the Congress members crafting immigration proposals are almost always men, it’s no surprise that immigration policy is what I’ve dubbed as “sexclusionary.”

From the numbers alone, it’s clear that immigration is a women’s issue. Women and children comprise three-quarters of people migrating to the United States. Yet our current policy excludes them from many of the opportunities and protections of the system, and boxes them into a small number of visa categories.

As bipartisan proposals near completion in both the Senate and House, it’s critical that women across America change the conversation. We must highlight the ways in which immigration policy excludes and limits women and make sure this round of reform prioritizes issues that are essential to women’s equality.

Here are six ways that U.S. immigration policy excludes women—and corresponding ways that immigration reform legislation can be crafted to instead prioritize the needs of women.

1. Recognize the work that women do as real work. Roughly 60 percent of undocumented women work outside of their homes, many in industries where employment is temporary, informal or unverifiable—think domestic caregiving and service work. The remaining 40 percent work at home taking care of their children and families. A plan that attaches citizenship to proof of work would leave out millions of women and devalue the real contributions of their work, whether at home or in the formal or informal economy.

2. And quit trapping skilled workers as dependents on their husbands. Currently, only 27 percent of all principal visa holders—those authorized to work—are women. Since the majority of principal visa holders are men, it follows that two-thirds of dependent visa holders are women. Immigrant women in the dependent visa category are not allowed to work, even though they have the same level of attainment of bachelor’s degrees as native-born women and bring skills with them. As a result, they end up staying home, financially and socially dependent on their husbands. In fact, both the principal and dependent visa categories have significant problems for women. Globally, the employment system prioritizes professions dominated by men—such as technology and agriculture—even though our labor markets have tremendous shortages in professions dominated by women. For example, experts estimate that those who need long-term care will more than double to 27 million people by 2050. Simultaneously, the direct care workforce—both for in-home or domestic care workers—will be the fastest growing occupations in the labor market in the next decade. These industries, along with restaurant and hotel industries, employ majorities of women workers but are never prioritized for employment visas. Moreover, any employment visas also need to ensure protections and rights on the job, so women immigrants can move from employer to employer and feel safe in reporting abusive employers.

3. Don’t make women wait 20 years to unite with their families. Currently, 70 percent of women enter the country through the the family sponsorship channel. As a result, the system’s inefficiencies, outdated regulations and long wait times disproportionately burden women. Today, more than 4 million people sit waiting in the family “backlog”—meaning they have applied legally for their close family members to enter the country, but must wait for excessive periods to be reunited with their families. If you are from Mexico, the Philippines or India, for example, the wait times can be as long as 20 years. Same-gender partners are also excluded from sponsoring family members at all, since federal immigration law does not recognize same-sex couples for the purposes of family sponsorship. Left with no options, many same-sex couples end up living apart, across country borders or becoming undocumented in order to stay together.

4. Make the U.S. once again a safe haven for survivors of violence and trafficking. Human traffickers and smugglers prey on immigrant women desperate to join their families. Women asylum seekers or refugees also often see the U.S. as one of their only options to escape terrible abuse and conditions in their home country. Until 1996, America had a proud history of protecting these women. But everything changed under that Congress. Lawmakers created new barriers for asylum seekers and, in the years since, policy makers have continued making it easier for survivors of gender violence (including rape) to be deported to their countries of persecution or detained for long periods of time. The disregard for important protections for women immigrants was only highlighted by recent ugly squabbles around reauthorization of the Violence against Women Act. The ultimate passage of VAWA—after protracted battle and high-profile failures—was secured only after eliminating a tiny expansion of the number of visas for immigrant women to come forward and report domestic violence without fear of retribution. It is more essential than ever that this round of immigration reform restore the U.S. history of providing a haven for immigrants who are victims of domestic violence, as well as ensuring protections for pregnant women, asylees and refugees, abused women and unaccompanied minors.

5. Protect families and ensure due process. Too many women and children unfairly bear the brunt of detention and deportation. As a Colorlines investigation uncovered, 23 percent of all deportations in a two-year period were issued for parents with U.S. citizen children. The stunning number of deportations taking place each year—over 400,000 in 2012 alone—have left tens of thousands of families destroyed and torn apart by outdated laws that punish aspiring Americans. Women, in particular, as primary caregivers are deeply affected. California Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard has proposed a fix to this, offering a bill that could be integrated into immigration reform legislation. The bill would provide protections for deported parents and for undocumented family members who care for young relatives.

6. Promote the ability for women to fully integrate into society. Approximately 10 million immigrant women speak limited English and need help from the federal government to learn our language and laws and ensure they can contribute their skills fully. English classes that currently exist often exclude women because they are tied to workforce training, take place at community colleges that require a basic level of English to enroll, or are held at times that are impossible for people who are caretakers to leave their homes and family responsibilities. Immigration reform legislation that includes an English language requirement without addressing these issues will leave millions of women at a severe disadvantage for the future. bell hooks described feminism once as “a movement to end sexist oppression.” By this measure, immigration reform offers a powerful moment for women to ensure their voices and priorities are at the forefront. If that happens, U.S. immigration policy can start working for women, rather than against them.

Pramila Jayapal is a distinguished taconic fellow at Center for Community Change and a co-chair of the We Belong Together campaign.
This article originally appeared in COLORLINES on Monday, March 18 2013. http://colorlines.com/archives/author/pramila-jayapal

A Win for Women

Last night was a late one for many of us, and we were tired. Not just “in need of some coffee” tired, but also tired of the attacks on women, tired of the empty pandering by politicians.

But today brings with it fantastic optimism because the real winner in the 2012 election was women!

• The 113th Congress will have a record-breaking 19 female senators, including the first openly gay senator! (To put that in perspective, it’s still only one-fifth of the Senate, so we have much work to do before women are equally represented.)
  
• New Hampshire likewise made history, electing the first all-women delegation – in the House, the Senate and the Governor’s office.
  
• Todd Akin – who famously said that the female body would prevent pregnancy caused by “legitimate rape” – and Richard Mourdock – who declared that pregnancy resulting from rape was a “gift from God” – were defeated.

Decisive wins across the United States affirmed progressive values, including major gay marriage wins in several states. After a year of relentless attacks on equal pay, reproductive health and everything in between, women have spoken. Fifty-three percent of votes were cast by women – higher than our actual proportion of the population. We voted on the issues most important to us – abortion, jobs, health care, the economy and equal pay.

Not surprisingly, those are also issues that the Ms. Foundation cares deeply about. While we celebrate the gains women made last night, I hope you will join us in addressing the unfinished business that remains.

Media Ignore Record Poverty Among Women

Wednesday, in "Women: The Invisible Poor," the Daily Beast's Lindsay Bennett wrote: "When it comes to the latest economic data on women, the news is even worse than most people seem to realize. But you couldn’t learn that by reading The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, neither of which even mentioned women in their front-page stories about the rise in the poverty rate, which has soared to its highest level since 1993."

You said it, Lindsay. We couldn't believe it either. In its lead article covering the Census Bureau's new poverty data, the Times highlighted increases in poverty among men, children and youth, with not one mention of women, who are also facing record poverty levels this year (and, as always, are more likely to be poor than men). Here are some of the numbers:

• Poverty among women climbed to 14.5% in 2010, the highest rate in 17 years. 
• Women (7.5 million of them) are also experiencing the highest rate of extreme poverty on record. 
• Poverty rates among women of color (25.6% for Black women, 25% for Latinas) and single moms (40.7%) are even more staggering. 
• The child poverty rate climbed to 22%, and more than half of children in poverty lived in families headed by single mothers. 

And why is it so important to report this data? In part because it underscores how important it is to elevate women's solutions -- solutions based on lived experience and tremendously urgent need.

Solutions like paid sick days (just passed in Seattle) and quality, affordable child care, both of which help women in particular keep their jobs. Solutions like using federal dollars to prevent  teacher layoffs in states nationwide, one of many put forward by our grantees that were included in President Obama's recent jobs proposal. And solutions like those of the Caring Across Generations campaign, which would create 2 million new caregiving jobs and overwhelmingly benefit low-income, immigrant women of color.

This week's poverty numbers -- as well as growing numbers of those without health insurance, and a stagnant gender wage gap -- remind us just how badly women are reeling. How urgently change generated by women is called for. And how shameful it is that the 17.2 million women living in poverty -- particularly in a climate where women are bearing the brunt of the recession -- are not front-page news.

So, press, pundits and policymakers: do your job -- and your math! -- and consider the full story. Women are half of our nation's workforce, and two-thirds of families depend on women's earnings to survive. How can our country recover if we don't do everything we can to guarantee their visibility and well-being?

Photo: © Elizabeth Rappaport and the Ms. Foundation for Women.

Ms. Foundation on CNN.com: What's Pushing Women Away From Voting?

Read the following Ms. Foundation commentary published today on CNN.com:

What's Pushing Women Away From Voting?

By Sara K. Gould, President & CEO and Susan Wefald, Executive Vice President & COO, Ms. Foundation for Women
Special to CNN

(CNN) -- It's been a record year for women in politics. In 2010, 36 women -- more than ever before in our nation's history -- filed to run for U.S. Senate. Fourteen of them have won their primaries -- another record.

Historic gains also have been made on the House side, with 262 women filing this year to run for a congressional seat -- 40 more than in 1992, the so-called "Year of the Woman," when major records were set for women's participation in political races nationwide.

It doesn't stop there. According to the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University, 10 women in eight states have been chosen as their party's nominee for governor, tying a previous record. And whatever happens in Oklahoma and New Mexico on November 2, they'll be swearing in a woman as the new governor come January since both major parties nominated a female to run for the open seat.

With so many women candidates declaring their readiness and excitement to lead on a national stage, it's tempting to assume that women voters might be feeling similarly energized. But recent polling indicates that something quite different is happening.

In reaching out for the opinions of likely voters, CNN/Opinion Research Corp. found that 23 percent of women polled described themselves as "extremely enthusiastic" about voting in the upcoming elections, compared with 38 percent of men. This apparent lack of "enthusiasm" among women voters has been echoed in other national surveys as well, including a poll last month by The New York Times and CBS News.

So why are women registering lower levels of excitement about the midterm elections?

First there's the economy: Unemployment rates are going nowhere and governmental benefits seem perpetually on the brink of being axed. Women are increasingly finding themselves both overburdened (two-thirds of U.S. families now rely on a woman's earnings to survive) and out of work (the unemployment rate for single mothers has more than doubled since 2007 and is at its highest in 25 years).

And their growing despondency over the economic situation -- at home and at large -- may be dampening any desire to race to the ballot box.

Then there's the current state of American political affairs, with its take-no-prisoners, race-to-the-bottom mentality. With so many fires to put out in their own backyards, women -- and many men -- may finally have had enough of the adversarial, sometimes violent, rhetoric that our political contests have lately taken on.

In too many states, these midterm elections have devolved into little more than headline-grabbing "character wars." Instead of providing opportunities to talk about the policies we need to pull our nation out of its dismal state, campaigns and the media have frustratingly focused attention on tales of witchcraft and fluoride-fears, on purported marital infidelities and religious bona fides.

In a context in which 13.9 percent of women are now officially living in poverty (the highest rate in 15 years) and facing long-term unemployment, it's not surprising that women lack enthusiasm for voting. What's missing, for most women, are the political narratives about the things that matter to them: good jobs, clean air, health care and what it will really take to rebuild our national economy.

What our decades of work with thousands of grass-roots leaders across America have taught us is that women are impressed by solutions, not sound and fury. They want leaders who understand and take seriously the challenges that families of all shapes and sizes now face in trying to put food on the table; leaders who have a plan, for example, for ensuring that quality, affordable child care and health care are available to all who need it.

But however unenthused women may feel about these upcoming elections, from where we stand their participation is desperately needed.

As one of our grantees, the National Women's Law Center, recently pointed out, over the next few months Congress will make landmark decisions about "whether to extend unemployment insurance benefits, whether to repeal new provisions making it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, and whether to invest in families struggling to make ends meet." Women's votes have the power to influence how those decisions get made.

With so much about the future of our nation at stake this Election Day, women must show up at the polls and make their voices heard -- because when we do, we advance a vision of America where equality and justice are more than just catchphrases. The rhetoric of this political season may not be what we want or like, but times are simply too tough for millions of women to sit this one out.

Sara K. Gould on ARRA Anniversary: Child Care, Green Jobs, Grassroots Advocacy Are Key

Today, on the first anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Sara K. Gould, Ms. Foundation President & CEO, shares her thoughts on the National Council for Research on Women's Real Deal blog about ARRA's impact to date and what else is needed to ensure real and lasting security for women, families and communities. She begins:

ARRA has provided a crucial injection of support to states during the worst of our nation’s current economic crisis. Take child care, for example: several states have used the funding to prevent budget cuts; some have reduced waiting lists for subsidized child care; and others have worked to improve the quality of child-care delivery.

That said, a lack of transparency and accountability has prevented grassroots organizations from accessing ARRA funding and assessing the extent to which it has alleviated economic insecurity in their communities. States have had considerable leeway in choosing which funds to accept and which reforms to implement; as a result, billions of dollars have yet to reach those most in need, especially low-income people, people of color and women.

Moving forward, we can do better. In addition to improving transparency and accountability, there should be a greater role for grassroots organizations who know best how to stabilize local communities. We should also bolster support for grassroots policy advocacy. It’s not enough to keep existing programs afloat; we need to continue to transform policies to make them work better for more people, well into the future. Read More

Sara's post is part of the Real Deal blog's Forum on Economic Recovery Act.

Update (22 February 2010)
The Ms. Foundation announces an open call for proposals for Economic Justice and ARRA Implementation.

Ms. Foundation Grantees Promote Women's Access to Green Jobs

Earlier this year, the Ms. Foundation issued grants to national organizations and coalitions with the potential to take advantage of progressive openings created by the new presidential administration. By supporting strategies that connect grassroots solutions to national advocacy, the Ms. Foundation is working to ensure that the communities with the greatest need benefit from policy change in areas that are likely to re-shape the social and economic infrastructure of our nation: health care reform, green jobs, workers’ rights, child care and immigration.

Two Ms. Foundation grantees, Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) and Green For All, have been focusing in particular on ensuring equitable access to green jobs for women, low-income people and people of color. Green jobs, like those in construction and other building trades, are more likely to offer a living wage and, because this is a new and rapidly expanding field, long-term economic security.

Last week, with funding from the Ms. Foundation, WOW held the first national institute for organizations from across the country seeking to train women in green jobs. This week, we share a video from Green For All which highlights how stimulus funds are already being put to use to train women in weatherization:

Tahlia is a single mother of a 3-year-old son in Brooklyn, NY. "Construction is something that I wanted to do for a long time," she said. "I had no way of knowing how to get into this field because I always heard it was a man's world."

Now, thanks to the Recovery Act, Tahlia has a job weatherizing homes in New York.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5U6ZO-3XGw

Learn more from Green For All's Green Economy Roadmap.

Women of Color Policy Network Releases Study on Race, Gender, and the Recession: Job Creation and Employment

Our colleague, C. Nicole Mason, executive director of the Women of Color Policy Network at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, has authored a sobering report, the first in a four-part series on the impact of the economic crisis and recession on women of color, their families and their communities.

The series focuses on effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and the first report focuses on job creation and employment. It finds of the nearly 4 million jobs created or saved through the Act, only 917,675 will go to African-Americans and Latinos. An additional 1.7 million jobs would have to be created and go directly to Blacks and Latinos to cut the unemployment rate in those communities to Administration's projected national rate of 6.5 percent by 2010.

The study also finds:

• Of the jobs created or saved, African-American and Latino women will receive an estimated 420,991 and African-American and Latino men will receive 496,684


• African-Americans and Latinos are under-represented in the industries targeted through the Reinvestment Act. Black and Latino men comprise 5.1 percent and 8.4 percent of those working in targeted industries. Black and Latino women make up 5.9 percent and 5.6 of those working in targeted industries


• Of the targeted industries and occupations identified as green, African-Americans and Latinos comprise less than 25 percent of those employed


• Although women will receive nearly half of the jobs that will be created through the Act, they are under-represented in higher-wage occupations and in targeted industries


• White women will receive an estimated 1,377,879 jobs through the Reinvestment act; a figure nearly 70 percent higher than for African-American and Latino women combined

C. Nicole Mason says, "During this time of great economic need and distress, it is important to consider the most vulnerable in our society. To ensure that everyone recovers successfully, the Administration will need to dedicate significant and additional resources to communities hit hardest and to those with the least safety nets."

Download the full report [pdf].
Download an executive summary [pdf].

Update
See also: Race and Recession: How Inequity Rigged the Economy and How to Change the Rules

Grantee Spotlight: Comprehensive Sex Ed Victory in California

One of our trailblazing Sexuality Education Advocacy Initiative grantees, the California Latinas for Reproductive Justice (CLRJ), has just won a big statewide victory. As The Mercury News reports, "After nearly two years of debate and numerous drafts, California's State Board of Education quietly adopted its first-ever set of 'health education content standards' this week." California passed a law requiring comprehensive sex education in 2003, but the Board of Education had yet to issue curriculum guidelines that would guarantee its implementation throughout the state. Now, thanks to the efforts of CLRJ and other advocacy organizations, age-appropriate, medically-accurate, comprehensive sexuality education will more surely reach California's more than 6 million students.

CLRJ's recent achievement comes on the heels of another important win last fall, when California Governor Schwarzenegger signed the Sexual Health Education Accountability Act. The bill, co-sponsored by CLRJ, requires that state funds for community-based sex education are spent on "medically accurate, unbiased, culturally and linguistically appropriate" programs and that they're directed to communities that need them most. The law went into effect on January 1, 2008.

CLRJ is a statewide policy organization that advocates for comprehensive sexuality education as a means to guarantee reproductive justice for Latinas throughout California. As they see it, young Latinas are particularly in need of stronger policy: the birth rate among Latina adolescents in California is three times higher than that of white teens; nationally, the AIDS case rate among Latinas is nearly six times higher than the rate among white women.

For more information on CLRJ's policy priorities and curriculum recommendations, see their policy brief on comprehensive sexual education.

We're sure CLRJ's victory will bolster the efforts of other sexuality education advocacy groups nationwide, and inspire an increasingly successful national movement--supported by the Ms. Foundation--to standardize comprehensive sex education in every state. We shine the spotlight on them this week for their powerful policy win, their fantastic approach to movement building--one of our own core values--and their broader commitment to guaranteeing reproductive justice for Latinas, their families and their communities. Congratulations CLRJ!

The Legacy of War for Iraqi Women

Last week, Nadje Al-Ali wrote a brilliant and scathing analysis in the Guardian of the ways in which Iraqi women have been most disastrously affected by the Iraq War--an especially sad critique given that support for the war among Americans was drummed up using the plight of oppressed Iraqi women who would supposedly be "saved" by the fall of Saddam Hussein and the introduction of American-like democracy.

Instead, Al-Ali argues, Iraqi women have experienced the most devastating fallout from violence:

While men have borne the brunt in terms of direct armed violence, women have been particularly hard-hit by poverty, malnutrition, lack of health services and a crumbling infrastructure, not least chronic power cuts which in some areas of Iraq see electricity only available for two hours a day.

What's more, "70% of the four million people forced out of their homes in the past five years in Iraq have been women and children." Displacement, as we know all too well along the Gulf Coast in the U.S., creates instability and often leads to rises in domestic and sexual violence.

Further, the Islamist militias and extremist groups that have taken control have consistently pushed women back into their homes, enforced strict dress codes and unleashed a flood of gender-based violence against Iraqi women. The "liberation" touted as the inevitable result of Hussein's fall, doesn't look so free. In fact, Iraqi women who were once proud and active doctors, lawyers and teachers claim it is impossible to continue amid the chaos and threats that have now engulfed the region. They risk death if they pursue their public works too boldly--or quite simply, because they are women:

According to a study by the Basra Security Committee, 133 women were killed last year in the UK-controlled city, either by religious vigilantes or as a result of so-called honour killings. Of these, 79 were deemed to have "violated Islamic teachings", 47 were killed to preserve supposed family honour, and the remaining seven were targeted for their political affiliations.

And there is so much more… Al-Ali, the director of the Gender Studies Centre at SOAS, University of London, the author of Iraqi Women: Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present (Zed Books, 2007), and the founder of Act Together: Women's Action for Iraq, offers a frightening, but comprehensive account of what Iraqi women have been experiencing since the latest U.S. invasion.

While it is impossible to compare the scope and nature of violence experienced by Iraqi women to that suffered by women in the U.S., Al-Ali's conclusions underscore the main point of my recent piece marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion: that women are disproportionately impacted by war. In the U.S, women are subjected to rising domestic violence, sexual assault, and even murder by veterans--who are, in most cases, receiving inadequate mental health interventions for their post-traumatic stress. And the economic fallout of the war affects women most acutely.

The heightened incidence of gender-based violence attributed to the war is not separate from the violence that the Ms. Foundation and our grantees are dedicated to fighting day in and day out--it only serves as a reminder of how pervasive violence against women--and all forms of violence--are throughout our society. Just as Hurricane Katrina does not mark the day that a gaping race/class disparity was born in this country, but instead made it undeniably real, the Iraq War reminds us all that gender-based violence, both at home and abroad, is still far too common--and like war, entirely preventable.

Sara K. Gould
President & CEO

The Primaries: Yes, Gender Matters...A LOT

Let’s put aside the question of whom to support in the Democratic primaries. Instead, let’s look at some of the most challenging issues facing our democracy that were raised by Gloria Steinem, co-founder of the Ms. Foundation for Women, in an op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times (1/8/08), "Women are Never Front-Runners."

They include:

“Why aren’t we ready to break the gender barrier?”

“The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent, and can only be uprooted together.” And finally,

We have “a talent pool limited by sex, race, money, powerful fathers, and paper degrees.”

Yes, money and pedigree are on the list, too, even though this country likes to blur our own class structures by highlighting the opportunities our free market system has to offer “everyone.” Class, like race and gender, creates significant barriers to equal and meaningful participation in our democratic process.

So, if our commitment to progressive social justice is real, we must at once address race and gender and class as we strive for an equitable and inclusive democracy.

At the Ms. Foundation, we support over 200 community-based and national advocacy organizations across the United States that represent, and work on behalf of, low-income women and women of color. Through our 35 years of support for women’s full participation in our society, we have seen over and over again that our grantees have powerful solutions to the myriad crises facing communities nationwide. But while fighting for policy and culture changes that benefit us all, they continue to face reinforcing barriers of racism, sexism and poverty–making them the most marginalized citizens in our democratic process.

Just take Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing disaster in the Gulf Coast. Low-income women of color were disproportionately affected by the storms and subsequent housing, health care and unemployment crises. But while their experiences make them uniquely positioned to devise and implement policy solutions, they remain largely excluded from decision-making tables.

In her op-ed, Gloria Steinem addresses the barriers women face by asking us to imagine an African American woman—with the same credentials as Barack Obama—running for president. “Could [she] be a viable candidate to head the most powerful nation on earth?” Ms. Steinem asks. Not likely. That’s because, she goes on to say, “Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House.”

Let's now add class to the mix. Let's imagine a low-income, African American woman, single mother of three, running for public office. A woman with scarce resources and time, yet whose knowledge, leadership and commitment would drive significant policy changes that would benefit all members of her community, city, state or country.

The fact is, while small numbers of low-income women of color have won a seat at policy tables —our grantees are a testament to that—most continue to be excluded from decision-making processes—and at great cost to us all. So as we take a look at the field of presidential candidates before us, let's not forget that the combined, often inextricably linked barriers of race, gender and class persist nationwide. Just how deep and pernicious these barriers are should be of great concern to everyone if we hope to realize a just and truly participatory democracy in 2008 and beyond.

By Sara K. Gould
President & CEO