Just a day after Trump issued a slate of executive orders aimed at restricting immigration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it was rescinding protections for “sensitive zones” where undocumented immigrants were protected from deportation. Some immigrant rights advocates are particularly worried that this could deter women experiencing domestic abuse from going to women’s shelters, which will no longer be protected from U.S. Immigration and Customs  Enforcement (ICE).

“The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement.

The sensitive zones policy, which was created in 2011, initially applied to places like churches, schools and hospitals. In 2021, the list of places was expanded by the Biden administration to include locations offering disaster or emergency relief and social services. The policy was put in place to allow undocumented immigrants access to essential services like health care without the threat of being deported. ICE could enter these places only if there was a threat of terrorism or imminent risk of death, among other exceptions.

“What is really important about sensitive zones is that they allow migrant women and families to safely access these spaces without fear that ICE will arrest or deport them there,” said Zain Lakhani, director of the Migrant Rights and Justice Program at the Women’s Refugee Commission. “The impact might be, for instance, that a domestic violence survivor will stay in an abusive situation because they’re being forced to choose between their immediate safety and arrest and deportation if they go to a shelter or take their children to a shelter.”

The administration could further hamper services for those experiencing domestic violence by expanding the definition of a “public charge,” which Trump did in his first term, though it was struck down by a federal court a year later. The public charge rule, which had previously been defined by a 1999 field guidance, means people can be turned down for visas or green cards if they are determined to be dependent on the government financially.

 

Read the full article about the executive order on immigration by Jessica Kutz at The 19th.