How Immigration Raids Target Women’s Health: What LA Families Need to Know Right Now
A provider’s guide to protecting your family when enforcement comes to your neighborhood
The Labora Collective 🌱
Where innovation meets advocacy. Where your voice shapes the future of women’s health.
The Supreme Court made it legal for federal agents to stop Latinas based on how they look, sound, and where they work.
Last week’s ruling in Noem v. Vasquez-Perdomo allows immigration officers across Los Angeles and six surrounding counties to use race, Spanish language, and job type as grounds for detention—creating a public health crisis that will devastate women and families for generations.1
This isn’t just about immigration status.
When law enforcement targets women based on appearance, it destroys the foundation of community health: trust in institutions, access to care, and family stability.
As someone who’s spent years documenting how policy failures kill women, I’m telling you what this means for your health and your family’s survival.
💔 Why This Hits Women Hardest
Healthcare becomes dangerous. Latinas already face the highest rates of undiagnosed diabetes, delayed cancer screenings, and untreated mental health conditions in the U.S.2 Now, seeking medical care means risking detention based on your accent at the clinic, your job cleaning buildings, or living near a bus stop where day laborers wait.
Prenatal care collapses. Pregnancy requires consistent medical monitoring. When women avoid hospitals due to enforcement fear, we see skyrocketing rates of pregnancy complications, preterm births, and maternal mortality. The communities targeted by these raids—largely working-class Latinas—already face maternal death rates 40% higher than white women.3
Domestic violence goes underground. Hispanic women experience intimate partner violence at rates significantly higher than the national average.4 Immigration raids make it impossible to report abuse or seek help. When your partner knows that calling 911 might bring ICE to your door, violence becomes a tool of control that endangers both mothers and children.
Children lose caregivers overnight. Women are the primary healthcare decision-makers in 80% of families.5 When mothers are detained, children miss vaccination appointments, medication refills, and chronic disease management. The trauma of family separation creates lifelong mental health consequences that pediatricians across Los Angeles are already documenting.
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⚖️ What’s Legal Now (The Terrifying Reality)
Since September 8, federal agents can stop you if you:
Look Hispanic or speak Spanish/accented English
Work in landscaping, construction, housekeeping, or food service
Are near Home Depot, day labor sites, car washes, or bus stops
Live in working-class neighborhoods where immigrants “are known to gather”6
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that “apparent race or ethnicity” and “speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent” can be “relevant factor[s]” and that detained citizens can “promptly go free” after proving their status.7 The case record tells a different story: U.S. citizen Jorge Viramontes was questioned four times in nine days. Another citizen had his Real ID confiscated and never returned.8
For women, this means: You can be detained while taking your children to school, going to work as a house cleaner, or picking up groceries. Your citizenship won’t protect you if you “look wrong” to agents who are under pressure to meet daily arrest quotas of 3,000 nationwide.9
🛡️ Immediate Protection Steps for Women and Families
1. Medical Preparedness (Do This Week)
Document your family’s medical history. Write down all medications, dosages, doctors’ names, and emergency contacts in both English and Spanish. Keep copies at home, work, and with a trusted friend.
Update emergency contacts at your children’s schools and daycare. Authorize a backup person who can make medical decisions if you’re detained.
Prepare medical releases allowing trusted family members to access your children’s healthcare and make urgent decisions.
Know your rights at hospitals. Federal law requires emergency treatment regardless of status, but document any discrimination or refusal of care.
2. Safety Networks
Create Signal/WhatsApp groups for your block, workplace, and church. Share real-time warnings about enforcement activity.
Designate community watchers who can safely film encounters and contact legal help.
Practice scenarios with your children about what to do if enforcement comes to school or home.
3. Legal Protection
Carry ID but protect privacy. Have identification, but you’re not required to answer questions about immigration status without a warrant.
Know key phrases: “I choose to remain silent. I want a lawyer. I do not consent to a search.”
Emergency legal hotline: CHIRLA: (213) 353-1333 / ACLU SoCal: (213) 977-5200
4. Financial Safety
Separate emergency funds. Keep cash accessible to trusted family members who can pay bail, medical bills, or transportation if you’re detained.
Document income sources in case detention threatens job security or benefits.
📊 The Health Consequences We’re Already Seeing
Los Angeles pediatricians report children asking if “la migra will come to the doctor.” Emergency departments document women arriving in labor who delayed care for weeks. Mental health clinics see anxiety and depression spiking among Latina patients who now view seeking help as dangerous.
This isn’t hypothetical. When Arizona’s “Papers Please” law went into effect in 2010, prenatal care visits among Hispanic women dropped 30% in the first year. Infant mortality rates increased.10 The same pattern is beginning in Los Angeles, amplified by federal enforcement with explicit Supreme Court approval.
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⚖️ Why Your Constitutional Rights Matter for Women’s Health
The Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable seizure isn’t abstract legal theory—it’s the foundation that allows women to move through public space safely. When the government can detain you based on appearance, accessing healthcare becomes an act of resistance rather than a basic right.
The Equal Protection Clause’s “core purpose,” in the Supreme Court’s own words, is *”doing away with all governmentally imposed discrimination based on race.”*11 Yet that same Court just approved the exact discrimination it claims to prohibit, creating a two-tiered system where some women’s bodies are subject to state control simply for existing in public.
💪 What We’re Building Next
This attack on women’s health and constitutional rights demands organized resistance. I’m working with partners across LA to create:
Community health navigators who can safely connect women to medical care during enforcement periods
Know-your-rights trainings specifically designed for women’s health scenarios
Legal observer networks documenting violations and supporting affected families
Healthcare provider resources to maintain access during the ongoing crisis
📣 Share This With Every Woman You Know
“La Corte Suprema permitió que los agentes paren a mujeres por parecer latinas, hablar español, o por el trabajo que hacen. Esto afecta tu salud, la salud de tus hijos, y tu seguridad. Necesitamos cuidarnos entre todas.”
This is how we keep our communities healthy: we share information, we look out for each other, and we refuse to let fear destroy the care networks that keep women and families alive.
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REFERENCES:
Noem v. Vasquez-Perdomo, 606 U.S. ___ (2025) (No. 25A169) (order granting stay Sept. 8, 2025).
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Health of Hispanic or Latino Women, https://www.cdc.gov/women/hispanic/index.htm (documenting disparities in diabetes, cancer screening, mental health access).
Petersen, E.E., et al., Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Pregnancy-Related Deaths — United States, 2007–2016, 68 MMWR 762 (2019) (Hispanic women face maternal mortality rate of 11.5 per 100,000 vs. 7.5 for white women).
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Hispanic/Latinx Domestic Violence Facts, https://ncadv.org/STATISTICS (Hispanic women experience domestic violence at rates 23% higher than non-Hispanic white women).
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Women as Health Care Decision-Makers, https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/facts-and-features/fact-sheets/women-healthcare-decision-makers/index.html
Noem, 606 U.S. at ___ (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (listing “apparent race or ethnicity,” “speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent,” location, and occupation as “relevant factor[s]”).
Id. (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (listing “apparent race or ethnicity,” “speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent,” location, and occupation as “relevant factor[s]”).
Noem, 606 U.S. at ___ (Sotomayor, J., dissenting); ACLU of Southern California case materials.
E. Findell et al., The White House Marching Orders That Sparked the L.A. Migrant Crackdown, Wall St. J. (June 9, 2025).
Toomey, R.B., et al., Impact of Arizona’s SB 1070 Immigration Law on Utilization of Health Care and Public Assistance Among Mexican-Origin Adolescent Mothers and Their Mother Figures, 104 Am. J. Public Health 28 (2014).
Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181, 206 (2023).
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
ACLU Southern California case tracking: https://www.aclusocal.org/en/cases/vasquez-perdomo-v-noem
CHIRLA Emergency Legal Hotline: (213) 353-1333
Los Angeles County Department of Public Health:
https://publichealth.lacounty.gov/
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233