US Immigration Policy Crisis

The Crisis

Since the Trump administration returned to power in 2025, sweeping immigration policy shifts and devastating funding cuts have triggered a global and national crisis. 

In the United States, parents are increasingly being detained and deported without the opportunity to reunite with their children or make caregiving arrangements for them. Pregnant, postpartum, and nursing mothers are being detained in untold numbers, despite the US government’s own policies prohibiting the practice except in limited circumstances.  

Thousands of migrants and asylum seekers are navigating a return to their home countries or to other countries with which they have no ties and where they remain in limbo, unable to return home. Meanwhile, massive cuts to US foreign assistance have reduced critical funding for women’s organizations, health services, and gender-based violence support programs for migrants and other displaced people, leaving women and girls at heightened risk for violence and exploitation.   

The Women’s Refugee Commission is assessing and documenting the impact of US immigration policy changes and humanitarian funding cuts on displaced women and families in Mexico, Central America, and around the world. Our research is providing a clearer picture of the harms experienced by women, girls, and other marginalized groups—and it is guiding our advocacy efforts to mitigate these harms. In particular, we are focusing on two areas at the intersection of gender and migration, where we have established expertise and authority and stand to have the greatest impact: the new family separation crisis, and the detention of pregnant and postpartum women.

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Your support of WRC can help us to advocate for detained women, mothers separated from their children, and other refugee and immigrant women and girls around the world. 

Our Priorities

In the US, where the immigration system has become a “black box,” we are working to uncover and highlight abuses currently happening in the dark:  

• Our Detention Pregnancy Tracker is the first nationwide tool to collect documentation of detention conditions for pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women. In the first few months since the tool’s launch, we have gathered evidence of abuse and neglect, fostered partnerships with service providers, and used the data to advocate both on behalf of detained women and for greater oversight of immigration detention—in the halls of Congress, in the media, and in the legal system. 

• We have developed numerous guides, toolkits, and technical resources for migrant families and their advocates to navigate their legal options and rights.  

• We have delivered multiple FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests to the US government and are also working closely with members of Congress to increase transparency and protections for migrant women and girls, including through “Dear Colleague” letters, appropriations, and legislation.  

In Mexico and Central America, we are undertaking research trips, often with partners including WOLA and Physicians for Human Rights, to meet with recently deported people and with service providers who are assisting them upon arrival. These trips represent a new and innovative method of monitoring abuses in detention. Our investigations have revealed ways in which the immigration system is moving at a speed too fast for human rights: Pregnant women are receiving inadequate medical attention in detention, parents are being deported without having made arrangements for their children’s care, and the right to due process is being disregarded.  

Mass deportations from the US, the closure of the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers, and other recent policy shifts are reshaping historic migration patterns. As options for refugees and migrants in the region grow increasingly limited, displaced and migrant women and girls in Mexico and Central America are facing greater risks of violence and exploitation.  

At a time when women’s organizations, health services, legal assistance, and gender-based violence support programs for migrants are more critical than ever, the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid have reduced funding for them across the region. Meanwhile, already strained asylum, shelter, and support systems are being further stressed by US deportations to Panama, El Salvador, and Costa Rica of nationals from outside the region. WRC has launched a research initiative to analyze the impact of these changes on women, women-led organizations, and women’s service providers in places ranging from Honduras to Sudan.  

 Throughout all of our work, we are building coalitions—of women’s rights, immigration, and humanitarian groups—and creating strategic partnerships—with organizations, Members of Congress, impacted populations, and the public. Together, we are sounding the alarm and raising a powerful, unified voice for the rights, needs, and protection of refugee and migrant women and children. 

How To Help

Join us in standing with detained women, mothers separated from their children, and other refugee and immigrant women and girls forced to flee their homes.  

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Our Advocacy and Resources

WRC is committed to ensuring the needs and rights of those impacted by the US immigration policy crisis are protected. Below is a rundown of WRC’s related awareness-raising and advocacy work.