Trump Administration Attacks Women and Immigrants In a Single Case

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There’s a case in which we’re seeing the Trump administration’s efforts to weaken the rights of women and immigrants at the same time.

On Friday, a federal judge in D.C., issued a temporary restraining order preventing U.S. officials from blocking a 17-year-old undocumented immigrant from terminating her pregnancy.

Later that day, the DOJ sought and obtained an order further delaying the young woman’s abortion. That plays into the Trump administration’s strategy of forcing this woman to complete her unwanted pregnancy by running out the clock.

The young woman known as Jane Doe in Garza v. Hargan is in Texas, where under state law, abortions are illegal after twenty weeks. She is under custodial control of the Office Of Refugee Resettlement, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services.

In March, the office established a policy that would bar young women in its custody from taking any action to terminate a pregnancy, including making doctor’s appointments, without the director’s consent. The director, a Trump appointee, doesn’t know anything about refugee policy, but he is a militant anti-choice activist – which may explain why Trump chose him for this position.

The Sessions DOJ is working to weaken the rights of immigrants in the Muslim Ban case and now in this one. That ideal is reflected in the DOJ’s position in this case. As noted in a LA Times article, the DOJ argued that “the government was not infringing Doe’s rights because she could leave custody at any time if she agreed to waive her immigration claims and be deported.”

The bottom line is the DOJ is playing two different rights off each other. If Jane Doe “really” wants her constitutional right to due process (a right that is also protected under numerous instruments of international law to which the U.S. is a party) then the government has the right to force her to complete her pregnancy. If she “really” wants her constitutional right to an abortion, then she must waive due process on her immigration claims and be deported.”

As much as this is about attacking the rights of immigrants, it’s also a part of the Trump administration’s war on all women’s reproductive rights that only begins with abortions and birth control. Trumpcare would deem pregnancy a pre-existing condition, which will make insurance for pre-natal care and giving birth out of reach for millions of women.

There is nothing pro-life or “great” about attacking the constitutional protections of immigrants and women, or limiting their choice to which right they are “willing” to forgo to preserve the other one.