Central American refugee women and families in the United States

• In Event: Rearticulating the Central American refugee ‘crisis’: empire, erasure, and resistance during the neoliberal turn

Abstract

In 2015 the UN Refugee Agency published the report, “Women on the Run,” about the
conditions women are fleeing in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. Domestic,
sexual, and other forms of gendered violence pushed the women—many of them with small
children—to embark on a dangerous journey north. International refugee rights grant these
women protection to seek asylum outside of their countries. And although the US is a signatory
to these international treaties, the Obama administration has not protected them. Instead, in an
effort to deter future asylum seekers, this administration has detained them, treated them like
criminal prisoners, all while allowing corporations to profit from their incarceration.
My presentation will explore the conditions these women have faced, emphasizing their agency
through the process. Despite facing multiple oppressions, detained women have managed to
organize themselves to draw national and international attention to their plight. In a letter writing
campaign in 2015, they voiced their grievances, telling stories of food that makes them sick and
a lack of healthcare. They denounce that they are treated as less than human, followed around, or
put in solitary confinement for speaking out. In October 2015, 27 women began a hunger strike
at the T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor, Texas. They, along with detainees in a number of
other centers, once again put their bodies on the line, risking their health, and risking their lives
to demand humane treatment. Their demand is consistent and clear: release everyone
immediately.

Author

• Leisy J Abrego, University of California/Los Angeles