Pregnancy in United States immigration detention: the gendered necropolitics of reproductive oppression

ABSTRACT

This article argues that the detention and inhumane treatment of pregnant migrants by the United States (US) immigration authorities forms part of a continuum of gendered necropolitical violence that frames migrants’ lives before, during, and after crossing the US–Mexico border. In this context, pregnancy – a uniquely gendered and embodied experience – is a rich site of analysis, a place where reproductive oppression is enacted on individual bodies as well as reproduced in rhetoric that criminalizes pregnant migrant women. This article brings together two streams of analysis by feminists of color: first, the analysis by Latin American feminists of the “war against women’s bodies” in the current phase of narcocapitalism and necrocapitalism in Mexico and Central America; and second, the analysis by scholars of gendered immigration enforcement (“crimmigration”) and reproductive oppression in the US. This transfeminist approach brings the US reproductive justice movement into conversation with a Latin American feminist critique of gendered necropolitics in the Americas, pointing the way toward a radical politics of embodied personhood and reproductive autonomy.

RESUMEN

En este artículo se argumenta que la detención y el trato inhumano de las personas migrantes embarazadas por parte de las autoridades de inmigración de los Estados Unidos forma parte de un continuo de violencia necropolítica de género que enmarca las vidas de las migrantes antes, durante y después de cruzar la frontera entre los Estados Unidos y México. En este contexto, el embarazo – una experiencia única de género y corporal – es un rico sitio de análisis, un lugar donde la opresión reproductiva se representa en los cuerpos individuales, así como se reproduce en la retórica que criminaliza a las mujeres migrantes embarazadas. Este ensayo reunirá dos corrientes de análisis de feministas de color: en primer lugar, el análisis de las feministas latinoamericanas sobre la “guerra contra los cuerpos de las mujeres” en la fase actual del narcocapitalismo y el necrocapitalismo en México y Centroamérica; y en segundo lugar, el análisis de las especialistas en la aplicación de la ley de inmigración con perspectiva de género (“crimmigración”) y la opresión reproductiva en los Estados Unidos. Este enfoque transfeminista pone al movimiento de justicia reproductiva de Estados Unidos en conversación con una crítica feminista latinoamericana de la necropolítica de género en las Américas, señalando el camino hacia una política radical de personalidad corporal y autonomía reproductiva.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• pregnancy
• necropolitics
• reproductive oppression
• reproductive justice

PALABRAS CLAVE:

• Migración
• embarazo
• necropolítica
• opresión reproductiva
• justicia reproductiva

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge the support of the Jonas Nurse Leader Scholar Program.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Legally, CBP is limited to detaining migrants for a maximum of 72 hours, but in practice, people are often detained much longer (No More Deaths/No Más Muertes 2011).

2 Del Valle’s work focuses on the life history of women specifically. Elsewhere in this article, I use the phrase “pregnant people” to include people with the capacity to become pregnant who do not identify as women. Trans men and non-binary people are also subject to gendered necropolitical violence as “feminized others” (Segato 2018).

3 The brutal Zetas organization, for example, was originally made up of former members of elite Mexican army paramilitary units, some of whom trained in the US (Correa-Cabrera 2017).

4 “Constructive custody” is a legal term meaning custody of a person “who is not under immediate physical control but whose freedom is controlled or restrained by legal authority” (Merriam-Webster.com nd).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amanda Heffernan

Amanda Heffernan is a midwife, educator, parent, and doctoral student at the College of Nursing at the University of New Mexico, USA. Her work focuses on the intersection of migration and reproductive justice in North America. She recently moved back to Washington state after eight years practicing midwifery in Arizona in tribal and community health settings, including four years in the borderlands in Tucson.