Immigrant Justice and Reproductive Justice: Raising Families with Safety and Dignity

In the U.S., a large proportion of immigrant communities remain unable to access healthcare. And even before the fall of Roe v. Wade, Latine people, immigrants, and communities of color faced disproportionate barriers to abortion care. Criminalization, ICE raids, travel, and language barriers further deter immigrant communities from seeking abortion care. Lupe Rodriguez, Executive Director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice (NLIRJ), sits down to talk with us about how immigrant justice and reproductive justice intersect.

Latine people make up 41% of uninsured people in the country, and a large portion of that number reflects immigrant communities. Many immigrants, depending on the type of immigration status they hold, are not eligible for Medicaid. In some states, undocumented immigrants are not able to buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) marketplace. In addition, language barriers increase the difficulty of navigating the healthcare system.

The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” (OBBBA), passed earlier this year, will be devastating. According the NLIRJ, nearly 1 in 3 Latine people around the country rely on Medicaid for healthcare access, and many Latine communities also rely on Planned Parenthood as a hub for healthcare access. Combatting mis- and dis-information, building community, and progressive policy change can make a difference in this horrible moment.

LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE

National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice
Latina Institute’s 2025 Medicaid policy brief
Deepening the Divide: Abortion Bans Further Harm Immigrant Communities
The One Big Beautiful Bill Threatens to Defund Planned Parenthood
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act Will Decimate Medicaid

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Transcript

Jennie: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast on all things related to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. [music intro]

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Jennie: Hi rePROs. How's everybody doing? I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/her. So, I hope everybody had a wonderful new year. I was off the last two weeks, which was so lovely. I spent the first, I don't know, like 10 days or so at home in Wisconsin with my mom and got to see some of my family. And we do a huge Christmas Eve with my mom's side of the family. So, I got to do that. Unfortunately, I caught a bit of a bug on my way home. So, I was good the first couple days, and then I got sick. And so, I wasn't at my best. But that's okay. We had not really planned to do a bunch while I was home anyway. So, we just had a really chill time at home. I was hoping to get a bunch of reading done, but with being sick or getting sick, like I was so tired. I just didn't do much, I do a lot of reading at night before bed, and I just would go into bed and crash. So, I was in a bit of a reading slump over the holidays. That's okay. I did a bunch of baking. I think I made four loaves of sourdough bread and three or four loaves of pumpernickel. So, it was nice to get back to bread-baking. I had really not been doing much of it recently. I mean, I really just haven't been doing a lot of baking, period. What else did I make? Ooh, bananas foster upside-down cake, which was also delightful. We had that for breakfast as part of our breakfast on Christmas Day. What else? Went to a concert, a string quartet candlelit concert, which was lovely while I was home with my aunt and one of my cousins. And then we went out to dinner with them, and my cousin John joined us, which was also lovely to get to see him. Yeah, so it was really a chill holiday at home. And then I came back to DC and had, I don't know, I got home like Tuesday night, so I had almost a week at home back in DC to relax and have just some quiet time. I was able to get some reading done, which was nice after the bit of a slump while I was home. My kitties have been a little bit of monsters and clearly have missed me because they've been doing a lot of whining and lots of snuggling and sleeping on me. And so, it's been lovely. I really have enjoyed the time away. And y'all, I really, like, stepped away from everything and much needed. I didn't realize how much it was needed. So, it was really nice to step away. Not really ready to step back in, but you know, I'm back. Yeah, I think those are all of the big things. It was overall a really relaxing holiday and nice to spend some time away, ready to jump into this new year and think through things we should talk about on the podcast. So yeah, I just am really looking forward to a new year and hoping it is maybe marginally less terrible than last year, although it's not off to a super auspicious start. But, you know, hopefully it won't be as stressful and painful. Let's see. I think with that, let's just jump into this week's interview. I'm very excited to have on the podcast this week Lupe Rodriguez with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice to talk about immigrant access to health care, particularly abortion care. It was such a wonderful conversation that Lupe and I had before the holidays, so I hope you all enjoy it. Hi, Lupe. Thank you so much for being here today.

Lupe: Hi, Jennie. It's such a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Jennie: I'm so excited to talk to you about immigrant access to healthcare. But before we get started, would you like to introduce yourself?

Lupe: Yeah, thanks again for having me. I'm a big fan. My name is Lupe Rodriguez, and I'm the Executive Director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice. Just completed my fifth year on the team, and I'm so, so thrilled to be here.

Jennie: Well, I can't believe it's been five years already.

Lupe: Yeah.

Jennie: Somehow, like, the longest five years ever.

Lupe: Yeah, the fall of Roe, you know, the almost the fall of democracy, potentially- hopefully not, but yes, many, many things, many struggles.

Jennie: So, I feel like there is so much for us to talk about, but I feel maybe we should start with some basic scene setting for people who may not be as familiar and talk about kind of big picture immigrants' access to healthcare in general.

Lupe: Well, yeah, at Latina Institute, we are incredibly, incredibly concerned about the fact that in this country, a large proportion of immigrant communities remain unable to access health care for various reasons, but namely the fact that we don't have access to the kind of programs that many people use or are necessary to have access to care, right? Like so many immigrants, depending on the type of status they have, are not eligible for Medicaid, for example. In many states, immigrant community members, if they're undocumented, are not able to even apply to buy health insurance, right, through the ACA. And so, all of those barriers to, again, insurance programs and those systems that make healthcare accessible for many people are not, you know, within our, I mean, not even just because we can't pay for them, et cetera. It's just like not, we don't have access to them. And so, I think that's kind of like a baseline point here. Very, very specifically, we have seen that Latin people specifically make up about 41% of the total number of uninsured people in the country. And again, within that is a large proportion of immigrant communities. And so, you know, that that has made it incredibly difficult for folks to get care throughout the years, even before the current moment of very specific and targeted attacks against immigrant communities, they're adding additional barriers for folks to be able to get care through fear, right, of going to health centers or hospitals to get care, through even the fear of like traveling between their home and the place. So, you know, let alone getting there and potentially exposing themselves to detention, there's also, you know, risk in traveling at this point. And then, you know, all just the fact that, and also longstanding that many immigrant communities, especially folks who aren't English dominant, have had access issues at healthcare settings because of the lack of bilingual care, right, or care in their language. And so, all of these things are things that keep our communities from getting the care that they need and have been, you know, magnificently exacerbated in the last few years because of many different attacks on our communities and on healthcare in general.

Jennie: Yeah, thank you for bringing up this particular moment because I think sometimes people don't connect the various attacks that we're seeing and how they are related, right? So, maybe people are thinking just about healthcare and don't think about how the actions of ICE are making that access harder and how all of this is interrelated and interconnected. So, I'm really glad you brought that up.

Lupe: Yeah, I mean, it's something that I think is now being reported more and there's more coverage and elevation of like stories. But I'll say this, that I think this has been a long-standing problem. I think immigrants in this country have always lived with some level of fear, and I say that as an immigrant myself, you know, that there's always an experience of being othered that creates fear and disconnection, frankly, from programs and normal life, et cetera. But so yes, now I think the number of attacks, the inhumanity with which folks are being detained and separated from their families, I think is creating incredible fear. I think very practically, right, the removal of protections of protected spaces that formerly existed, like hospitals and medical settings, like churches, et cetera, you know, those places were off limits to ICE before and now, and now we're not, right? And our places where actually the agents are, you know, the folks who are enforcing are actively going to seek our communities out. And so, folks know that, and I think it's creating an incredible amount of fear for people that, or you know, heightening the fear that we've experienced for a long time.

Jennie: The other thing that really stuck with me is thinking about, you know, navigating our healthcare system is hard enough on its own. It is not easy to do, often intentionally. But if English isn't your first language or your primary language and then getting in and seeing the doctor and sometimes all the medical jargon in your native tongue can be hard to navigate. So, not being able to access care because you don't understand as clearly as you need to the information you're getting, like that is a huge barrier to accessing care.

Lupe: Definitely, definitely. We've done research in the past about how language access keeps people from getting the care they need. And one, in terms of just not wanting to go because they feel like they won't get the information they need or the treatment they need, etc. And then in the setting, right, like, once folks actually make it there, experiencing that they can't share what they're feeling accurately, like they're not getting information accurately. And as you said, this is like that, like for the most part, I mean, in general, people who aren't medical professionals have a hard time understanding these terms and all of this, and care protocols, etc. So, to imagine getting this in a language that you don't speak or that you're not dominant in makes it even more difficult. And I think that that continues to be an important problem and an important issue that we need to address.

Jennie: All of that brought us to where we are now, and that is expand, and now we have the "Big, Beautiful," Terrible Bill that is going into effect. How is that going to have implications for immigrants' access to healthcare?

Lupe: I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that it's going to be devastating. We know that community members and I'll speak specifically about Latine community members around the country very, very much depend on access to Medicaid for healthcare. We recently published a report that talked about the dependence, the extent to which our communities depend on Medicaid to be able to get the care that we need. And the numbers are really, really high. And so, I think the loss of that will make a situation that is already difficult—for the aforementioned reasons about accessibility, language access, fear—even worse; if folks don't even have a baseline place to go to get any kind of care or a landing spot, I think this is going to be really devastating. One. And then I think the other thing is obviously like losing access to the system or the coverage program that gives you access to that place is really important. I'll add that one other thing that we've been looking at in this situation with this bill is that it's coming together at a time when there have also been attacks on Medicaid access through Planned Parenthood, for example, which is another health system or healthcare entity that our communities depend on a lot. And so, losing that at the same, the local clinic that you used to go to, as well as other options of care is going to be so devastating. And we're keeping an eye on that, really seeing how we can organize people around this, frankly, because we know when we talk to community members that they really love their Medicaid access. They really love their Medicaid providers that they see through Medicaid. And we know that there's a mobilizing and organizing moment right now because folks are really scared about losing access to that program and to the care that they need.

Jennie: I'm glad you brought up Planned Parenthood because that brings us to another area that we are definitely seeing impacts, particularly for immigrant communities, and that's access to abortion care. Do you want to talk a little bit about: how abortion bans are impacting immigrant communities?

Lupe: Yeah, definitely. I'll always start with this, and many of these answers that, like, even before you know the current moment of attacks, and even before, frankly, the fall of Roe v. Wade, communities of color and Latina communities and immigrant communities specifically faced really big barriers and challenges to access to care; I think a lot of it, of course, having to do with not having access to programs, but like Medicaid or other health care and just not being able to afford paying for care. But also, the sort of long-standing issues of traveling and childcare, et cetera, all those things that have been barriers for people to get the care that they need. And so, but of course, with abortion bans, there was an extra element introduced in many states around the criminalization, right, of communities for seeking out the care. And I think that that's been an incredibly big deterrent for people from getting the care that they needed. In many states where there are bans, folks, in some cases, right, if they're able to put together the resources to travel, are doing that. But for immigrants, there's also a barrier there because folks might not have the documentation right to get on an airplane. They may not be able to, in states, for example, like Texas, that have internal immigration checkpoints at major highways inside the state, they may not be able to cross those checkpoints to get to the clinic on the other side, right? Or to get through the state to get to the clinic in another state. And so, I think those things are things that folks maybe don't always think about and are but are very specifically challenges for immigrant communities. I mean, I know that they're challenges for others as well who might not have documentation for various reasons, and getting those documents can often be difficult, even for folks who have documentation or documentation status to get them, but for immigrants, the impossibility of getting them makes it makes it that much more difficult. And then, I think the question about language barriers to getting access to the services, right? I know that in the movement we've had some really great moments of responding to this situation and trying to meet the moment for people, right? About, like, how do we get you resources so that we can figure out a way to help you get the care that you need. And one of the things that we've noticed, unfortunately, is that there's still a lack of access to those services and that support in languages like Spanish, right? And other languages other than English. And so, that's another thing that we've been noticing recently that particularly again for not English dominant immigrants has been an issue, just again, even getting the resources that we've been able to come up with to support people in getting the care.

Jennie: Yeah, I think the other thing I think about is we've talked a lot about how people can access medication abortion and get pills sent to them, and that it's very safe, but there's a legal risk. But that risk is not shared equally by everybody, right? Some communities are more targeted than others, and this is one area where immigrant communities would have that concern of being more targeted than other communities for taking this safe medication.

Lupe: Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up because I sort of intimated that in my last part where I was, saying that the movement has worked together to find solutions for people that are outside of the sort of normal ways. And one of them is by getting medication sent to them. And you're right, in addition to the fact that I think there's some, there's a little bit of a gap in terms of folks being able to get access to those things because of language barriers, there's also absolutely a huge legal risk that exists for people that isn't shared equally amongst everybody. And of course, immigrants are much more vulnerable than others in terms of criminalization, but with these attacks and everything else, right? I think there's just another layer of fear that this creates for people, right? You don't want to give people your address, right? You don't know where that data is gonna end up. And so, where this could have been an option for people, something that could have been a lifeline to this care, there's a new level of fear because of all the attacks on sharing information to get that care.

Jennie: I mean, I think that just leads me to think about the connection between reproductive justice and immigrant justice. Again, so many of our issues get talked about in silos and separately, but people's lives are not separate. And these are two overlapping issues. Do you mean we would talk a little bit about some of that overlap?

Lupe: Yeah, definitely. At Latina Institute, we've always our sort of founding values and principles around reproductive justice, around recognizing how attacks by the state, right, on our communities are keeping us from being able to raise the families we want and safety and dignity and security. And we've always seen that the immigration policies in the US, longstanding, right, have created, or anti-reproductive justice, right, have created barriers for families to be able to stay together, for families to be able to have healthcare access, for people to be able to have employment that's safe, right, where they're not vulnerable to exploitation. And so, we see all of those things, all of those, you know, those policies, those attacks against immigrants are very much attacks on people's bodily autonomy, attacks on people's safety and security, attacks on their ability to raise their families with safety and dignity. And so, we see those things as super connected. We talk a lot about how you know family separation through detention and the ICE raids that are happening right now, and the kidnappings are a violation of that value that folks should be able to care for themselves, their families with dignity and safety, that we should be able to live without fear. So, we’re elevating a lot of the stories of the families that we know in our communities at this moment as part of this dialogue and hoping to connect with other folks in the repro movement to do the same, right? I think it's important for those in our space who maybe haven't thought about the kind of more expansive view of reproductive justice as connecting to the separation of families, right? As recognizing that that's a violation of these values because you know we should all be able to raise the families that we want with safety and dignity.

Jennie: I feel like this is one of those things I always say when I talk about these issues, but it's just so true. It's just such a simple, basic thing, right? Like you should be able to raise your family in safety and the way you want. Like I don't know, it just feels so fundamental and basic that the fact that we have to argue for it always boggles my mind.

Lupe: Yeah, and I think, you know, I will say that I think for a long time in our movement, like we, you know, just sort of being a little bit self-reflected. I've been doing this work for 18 years and have worked in various parts of the movement. And I think there have been moments, right, where I think we have been, we haven't been as inclusive of those kinds of values in the conversations we're having about what it means to have, you know, the full sort of right around reproductive rights or reproductive justice, right? Often, I talk about abortion access, of course. We talk about birth control access and those kinds of things. But we don't talk about the right of the people to choose their family size, right? To choose how many children they have, with whom, where, when, all of that, all of those things, and that extra point about being able to raise those families with safety, security, dignity, with the resources they need. And so, I think it’s important for us to do that now and to keep expanding the way that we talk about these issues.

Jennie: Yeah, I think again, it sounds so small, but it is so big because it encompasses so many things, right? Free from violence; environmental, it means like a safe environment, like clean air, clean water like it includes so many things; it means being able to put food on the table; it means being able to pay your rent; affordable health care that you can access that's close to you, like so many things. Yeah. So now that we have this vision of what we want, right? This vision of this better future, what do we need to do to get there? I know this is the like, it's so easy, right? “We'll just need to fix these two policies.”

Lupe: Great question. I think I'll talk about the way that we think about this at Latina Institute. I mean, we do our work in three different ways, right? We know one, that the power to change things in our local communities, in our states, and in the country, starts with organizing and connecting with people in where they are, right? And it starts with education, training, bringing them together, building community, building relationships. And so, for us, that is one of the first sorts of things that we go to in this moment, and I think the thing that we've always gone to. And so right now, we're working to train more people than ever through our organizing program trainings for our Poderosa Mountain, which is our training program, and equipping them with I think sort of basics about like this is this is the way that you can organize with your communities. These are the systems in this country. I think we, as immigrants too, many of us come with knowledge of our country of origin, right? Like, and how things work there and may not understand all the systems of power here or ways to be able to influence. And so, we have an emphasis on that in the work that we do. And then we are also trying to bring folks together where they are, right? Like we don't, if folks don't know how to talk about like repro or abortion, or maybe if they're not even sure if they're supportive of abortion, like we still want to bring them in because we recognize that it's important for folks to be able to talk to each other and that evolution in in values and understanding about that happens when you're together with folks that you are building relationships with that that you feel safe with. And so, we bring folks together to do that. And so, we're investing a ton in connecting with people on the ground in different parts of the country, inviting them to our trainings, really bringing them in. So that's one. We're also working a ton to combat mis- and disinformation, particularly in Spanish. First, I think mis- and disinformation is rampant everywhere, and I think certainly on like, all the different sorts of information channels that folks have now. I mean, it's impossible to eliminate all of that, right? And even our social media, the social media people, people who are running social media companies don't care. And I think they care even less about Spanish-speaking people or Spanish-speaking channels. I think there's no investment there at all. And so, we are working to train people, to understand what's mis- and disinformation, how to combat it, how to talk to their friends and family about it, how to dispel myths, how to elevate good information. And so,we're going to the source, and I think it's a really important like effort right now to combat mis- and disinformation so folks understand what they have access to, what they don't, what kinds of things they can do to fight back, to change their communities, etc. And so, that's another really important thing. And then, of course, we also were an organization that was founded to have a voice at the federal policy level and to talk about policy change for Latine, you know, that could support and help Latine communities across the country. And so, we continue to show up there and bring folks from around the country to make their voices heard with people in Congress. I feel like they're often, you know, those the Congress people are often left alone to do whatever they want, and they can't have a moment's rest, I think, right now is what is what we think. And so, we're building the kinds of resources and connection for folks to be able to keep knocking on those doors and making sure that they're heard and making sure that our representatives understand what they need to do. We recognize that there might not be conditions right now to pass policy that can change the conditions that we're experiencing, but when that moment comes, like we need them to know that this has to be a priority. And those are some of the things that we're doing right now. But I think bottom line, I feel like it's super important right now to find the folks who you're, you know, who are your community, who you're with, and holding them closely, staying together with them, finding places where you can activate and get involved. That that work on the ground, that work to keep up, you know, keep ourselves safe is really critical right now.

Jennie: I think that's so true. And like thinking about this moment, there are so many ways people want to get involved, want to find ways that they can take action. So, what are some of the things that people can do right now to help support access?

Lupe: I think again, well, one thing I'll say that isn't connected to Latina Institute is that I think it's such a critical moment for folks to look at what mutual aid and other sort of resources exist in your community. I think folks are coming together in really beautiful ways, despite, you know, I always think about what's the silver lighting in this horrid, horrid moment. And I think it's that people are coming together to like, you know, buy groceries for their neighbors who might be scared to go out and do so because they're afraid of immigration or things like that. And there's so many like organic and also like organizations that are organizing these kinds of things. So, I would encourage folks to look out for those opportunities. I think abortion funds are always, I think, a really important way to get involved also at the local level. I ran an abortion fund many, many years ago called Access RJ. And if I had more time, I would still want to be, you know, driving folks to their appointments, et cetera. I think it’s such an important way for us to connect with folks who need support and to be there kind of on the front lines. So, I think that's really critical. And I also say, I encourage folks to join a political home right now. Like, find a place where you want to be activated in an area that might interest you, right? Like, if you join Latina Institute, for example, we have monthly calls around different topics like, you know, how to talk to your family about abortion; faith in abortion; we also have our trainings for our organizing program. We do events in DC and at the local level for policy. So, there's just so many ways that you can stay involved and get connected to kind of like what's happening in resistance. So, I would encourage folks to dial into those things and think about how you're responding in this moment to what's happening.

Jennie: And I know that it has hit very close to home for the Latina Institute. So, do you maybe want to talk a little bit about some of the risks that advocates are facing at the moment?

Lupe: Yeah, thank you so much for bringing up this part of the conversation. I agree entirely; our communities are not only facing access issues to reproductive health care and other healthcare, but activists who are in the movement and doing this work are actively taking risks every day if they have a documentation status that is not being a citizen or if their families are mixed documentation status. Like, we're taking risks for our families. And we, as you said, have had this hit very close to home recently. One of our teammates in Texas, who is one of our organizing interns in Houston, was detained by ICE in the Rio Grande Valley on the way from a meeting. Um, excuse me. And, you know, she's still in detention and separated from her family and her four children. And it is, you know, it's a sort of ever-present fear that I have and of course the team have around what we're facing. And, you know, I will say I've spoken to her recently and she's talked to us so much about how despite this, she is still undaunted, right? She's thinking about how she can organize people in the detention center where she is, that you know, she's thinking about what will happen when she, you know, what she's gonna do when she's able to leave detention. Either, you know, either coming back to her family in Texas or in Mexico, which is her country of origin, if she's sent back. And so, I think it's you know, it's just an example again of all of the risks people are taking, obviously, like a situation in which this person was detained, and but that there's still a resilience and an energy and a and a fighting spirit in in all of all of the team to keep going. And we see that every day with our Bolerosas across the country, many of whom are undocumented or have pending documentation, you know, pending cases for their documentation, or many of us who have mixed status families. And so, it's a weight that we- I think we're carrying every day.

Jennie: I just definitely will be keeping them in my thoughts, but man, that fighting spirit to still want to organize like that is just inspiring. And oh man, I just thank you for sharing. I am so grateful to hear that story and for all of the work that you guys are doing.

Lupe: Yeah, no, thank you for opening that part of the conversation. It's critical for folks to know that the community is at the front lines of the fight for themselves and again taking incredible, incredible risk. For as much of what I talked about in terms of the fear that folks are experiencing that's driving a lot of folks to not get the care they need, to be in hiding, to not want to leave their homes, there's a lot of us who are still moving forward and taking on those risks. And I think that that's really critical to elevate to.

Jennie: Well, Lupe, thank you so much for being here. I had so much fun getting to talk to you about honestly terrible things, but ways, but ending inspiring and ways that people can get involved. So, I think it was a great conversation.

Lupe: I loved it too, Jennie. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful for the invitation to be a part and I look forward to talking to you again. Thank you for having me.

Jennie: Okay, y'all. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Lupe. I had so much fun talking to her about immigrant access to healthcare, and I look forward to having her on again. And with that, I will see everybody next week.

[music outro] If you have any questions, comments, or topics you would like us to cover, always feel free to shoot me an email. You can reach me at jennie@reprosfightback.com, or you can find us on social media. We're at rePROs Fight Back on Facebook and Twitter, or @reprosfb on Instagram. If you love our podcast and want to make sure more people find it, take the time to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform, or if you want to make sure to support the podcast, you can also donate on our website at reprosfightback.com. Thanks all!