White House claims women pose national security risk because they are pregnant.
Today the Trump administration implemented a new rule that could ban women visitors around the world to the U.S. simply because a consular officer thinks they are pregnant or could become pregnant. Trump’s overreach is just one of many targeted attacks on women and their reproductive health. The administration’s continued efforts to wield power over women’s reproductive rights has now fostered into an overarching xenophobic and misogynistic attempt to cast off minorities.
For more clarification in the visa process and what this regulation entails, DHS Watch issued a statement breaking down the targeted attacks on women in this new travel visa restriction.
While White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham calls this rule a solution to combat national security risks, the reality is that it will demonize women of childbearing age and further polarize an already divided country.
In a Vox explainer, Ur Jaddou, Director of DHS Watch and former USCIS Chief Counsel, noted the implications on women’s bodies in this new regulation specifically citing that it does not have any legal basis except a consular officer’s judgment on the look of “any particular” woman.
I don’t even understand how they’re going to apply this in a way that is fair, that isn’t regulating women’s bodies.
In outrage, reproductive health and human rights advocates have outwardly condemned these actions that would demoralize and humiliate women in the basic form of their human rights — judging based on appearance if they are or could become pregnant.
Kerri Talbot, director of Immigration Hub, said in a Reuters article,
It is absurd that the Trump administration is turning embassy employees into reproductive policemen…Women will have to conceal their pregnancies just to get a tourist visa to visit the U.S.
Shannon Kowalski, director of advocacy and policy at the International Women’s Health Coalition, said,
These guidelines will make it harder for women, particularly young women, to travel to the United States for any purpose.
