I have heard/read the argument from some “feminists” that the idea of women and children first, when it comes to escape from a disaster, is sexist, implying that women and children need special help as a special group. Yet, when it comes to the immigration issue, “feminist” organizations rarely take it on unless something really horrific happens like what happened to Cirila Baltazar Cruz or the murder of Brisenia Flores. While the focus on immigration and it’s “reform” (seriously gonna start using that in quotes because of the opposite of change happening on that front in the U.S.) is painted brown and male, it is the lives of immigrant women and children that are being used as both the excuse behind anti-immigrant hate speech and the justification for enforcement policies.

In the absence of the Democrats really stepping up on comprehensive immigration “reform” the right, from the Grand Ole Party to the Teabaggers are jumping on the issue. According to Media Matters for America , Fox News is reporting on “anchor babies” again:

Fox Nation linked to an article reporting on how “Republican lawmakers in Congress are sponsoring a bill that seeks to abolish birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to illegal immigrant parents” using the headline, “GOP Targets ‘Anchor Babies.’” Several media outlets have identified the term “anchor babies” as, in the words of the Rocky Mountain News, “derogatory, even racist, because it implies that Hispanics are having children as a way to stay in the U.S.”

And for those advocates of libertarianism, Ron Paul gets a 100% and a gold star from hate group FAIR and Ron hates “anchor babies” too: Here is his answer to a question about amending the 14th Amendment, which granted non-whites born in the U.S. full citizenship rights:

it was the 14th Amendment. It wasn’t in the original Constitution. …And somebody who illegally comes in this country as a drug dealer, is he under the jurisdiction and their [sic] children deserve citizenship?…he favors hospitals reporting sick and pregnant undocumented immigrants for arrest and deportation

Women and children are often invoked in calls for reform when it comes to deportation and detention policies and yet the reality is that detention and deportation polices are creating a whole new generation of women in the United States left to care for the children left behind.

Consuelo Vega, a mother of three, lived and worked in this small town [Postville] surrounded by cornfields for 11 years.

Then in May 2008, she was arrested, jailed for five months and deported to Mexico following a massive, military-style immigration raid at a Kosher meat processing plant.

Vega’s three children remained behind in the care of her older daughter, San Lopez, who was 18 and worked part time at a local bakery while raising her infant son.

Overnight, after her mother’s deportation, Lopez’s responsibilities multiplied as she took charge of her 12-year-old brother Pedro Lopez and 8-year-old sister Samantha Lopez.

“How many nights I could not sleep wondering what we were going to do the next day,” she said. “I had to act like nothing was wrong to help my sister and brother but I was also depressed.”

And then we wonder why Latino dropout rates are so high?

I wonder how much of the lack of conversation around these issues has to do with the still overwhelmingly male dominated immigration media. There are certainly plenty of mujeres, Latinas and other women of color writing on the immigration issue and yet the debate is still dominated by men and that lens.