From language to travel barriers, immigrants seeking abortion care are left with few options after the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade.
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Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights has seen a recent uptick in the volume of frantic out-of-state calls they've received, especially from Spanish speaking immigrants, according to Aurea Bolaños Perea, COLOR's strategic communications director. Some callers have sought clarity from COLOR on how their immigration status would impact their ability to access abortions.
"Our immigrant community, our monolingual communities are disproportionately impacted in ways that I don't think any of us are prepared to fully manage just three weeks into this decision being made," Bolaños Perea told ABC News.Members of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice held a rally outside the Supreme Court in June 2016 for Whole Woman's Health v. Hellersted.
"That's something that is prevalent in every community, but particularly in the [Asian American and Pacific Islander] community with misinformation and false news that gets really easily disseminated through social media channels like WhatsApp or WeChat," Lee told ABC News. With abortion now illegal in Texas, Kumar said he often directs patients to travel elsewhere to seek care -- only to learn they had never previously left the state, let alone been on a plane.
When they travel across state lines to access care, there is no guarantee patients will receive the same accommodations after leaving their familiar communities. "Unfortunately, there are a lot of barriers to people that may have backgrounds that are representative of the communities that we serve. There are barriers to those people becoming doctors and becoming health care providers," Brandi, who is Puerto Rican and Panamanian, said.
For example, only 16 states and the District of Columbia currently permit undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses, excluding many of the states where abortion is banned and interstate travel is necessary.Furthermore, border regions with large immigrant populations like the Rio Grande Valley, where Cárdenas Peña lives, are peppered with internal Border Control checkpoints 100 miles in, meant to identify people in the U.S. unlawfully.
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