The Theft of Bodily Autonomy is Central to the Authoritarian Playbook, and Texas Has Been Its Proving Ground

Texas houses the country’s only family detention centers and has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the U.S., but it is also home to powerful reproductive justice and migrant rights movements

By Ja’Loni Amor Owens, Prism

The reproductive justice movement’s power in Texas is rooted in a truth we know too well: to fight for bodily autonomy is to fight for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the broader Department of Homeland Security (DHS) apparatus.

We are not new to this, but true to this.

detained mother with child at south texas family residential center

Texas is the epicenter of ICE terror: the national leader in ICE arrests and deportations and the solitary home of family detention. DHS recently pursued plans to purchase a warehouse in Dallas to cage up to 9,500 more of our neighbors. Though the developer ultimately withdrew following public pressure, the attempt reveals the scale of detention infrastructure the state is actively seeking to expand. We live with the visceral reality of state violence that forcibly disappears and kills our communities, from Houston to Amarillo, from Austin to the Rio Grande Valley.

The possibility of a Texas without militarized borders and overcrowded cages of immigrant families is dismissed by people who have no idea the reality of Texans’ daily lives. In Houston, one out of every seven residents knows someone detained or deported by ICE, with this number doubling among residents who identify as Hispanic and those near or below the poverty line. Across the state and over 20 detention centers, Texas holds the highest daily population of detained individuals, followed by California and Louisiana.