Women’s Refugee Commission Gravely Fears The Impact Of The Reconciliation Bill On Immigrant Women and Families

Yesterday the Senate voted to pass H.R.1, the Reconciliation bill also known as the “Big Beautiful Bill Act.” The bill contains provisions that would be catastrophically harmful to immigrant women and families, including survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking.

As written, the bill would cut tens of thousands of refugees, asylum seekers, and survivors off from access to healthcare by eliminating their access to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges and making them ineligible for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). It also eliminates their access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Without access to these benefits, survivors may be forced to remain in abusive situations longer than they otherwise would because leaving will mean they lose food or medical support for themselves and their children.

The bill also allocates more than $45 billion dollars to immigration detention, including family detention, a sum that exceeds the budget for the entire Federal Bureau of Prisons by 62 percent. Detention conditions are already deteriorating rapidly, with women and children being held in facilities so extreme that they fear for their lives. Reports of women being shackled together on buses for hours, of pregnant women being denied lifesaving care, and adults and children fighting over access to clean water abound. The bill’s proposal to rapidly expand detention at such an unprecedented scale will exponentially worsen conditions, including leaving detained women vulnerable to sexual assault and abuse.

“The Reconciliation bill is one of the most extreme attacks on immigrant women and families that we have ever seen,” said Zain Lakhani, director of the Women’s Refugee Commission’s Migrant Rights and Justice Program. “It supercharges the government’s ability to detain and deport immigrants with little to no oversight and no guardrails. It destroys access to vital public benefits for legally present immigrants fleeing violence, persecution, and abuse. And it guts lifesaving programs like Medicaid and SNAP for all Americans. We call on all members of the House to oppose this dangerous legislation, whose harms will impact communities across the country.”

For more information on how the Reconciliation bill harms migrant women and families, please read our factsheet here.

For more information on how stripping public benefits harms immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking, please read our factsheet here.

###