Attention-Seeking Bigot Claims Immigrants Are ‘Raping Our Women’ to Justify Bill That Could Harm Survivors

Instead, they invoke “women’s safety” in order to face minimal pushback when they try to expand the scope of who can be deported. “The reason the Trump administration and other conservatives use survivors as a shield is because they hope listeners will feel like it’s sexist to oppose them,” sexual violence researcher Dr. Nicole Bedera told Jezebel, adding that they wield this rhetoric “hoping to peel off Democratic support” for their anti-immigrant agenda. 

On January 13, over 200 immigrant, civil rights, and victim advocacy organizations signed a letter opposing H.R. 30, warning it’s more likely to be weaponized against immigrant victims than abusers. “Language and cultural barriers, fear of the abuser and the authorities, confusion, intimidation, a lack of awareness of rights, and a lack of access to advocates and other resources, all may prevent an immigrant victim from being able to communicate what really happened,” the letter says. “Rather than rushing to enact additional immigration penalties that could cause harm to survivors, we urge Congressional representatives to consult with service providers and survivors themselves to develop legislation that is responsive to their experiences and needs.”

The letter cautions that under H.R. 30, if victims commit acts of self-defense, or if their abusers falsely accuse them of abuse, they could face deportation. This is a widespread tactic of abuse known as DARVO, or deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. And DARVO is highly effective: About a quarter of survivors report that when they called 9-1-1 on their abusive partner, they—not their partner—were the ones arrested or threatened with arrest, when law enforcement officers perceive them as the primary abuser.

“Far too often abusers are successful in accusing victims of being the primary perpetrator, by showing scratches or other signs that a survivor tried to protect herself from harm or by hurting themselves and blaming the victim for the injury,” Casey Carter Swegman, director of public policy at Tahirih Justice Center and co-chair of the Alliance for Immigrant Survivors, told Jezebel of the bill.

Coercive control, or false allegations from abusers that implicate victims into the criminal or child welfare systems, is highly common; abusers also falsely accuse victims of abusing their children, which can lead to criminal charges under “failure to protect” laws. All of this contributes to our prison system in which 90% of incarcerated women have survived previous gender-based violence. 

Zain Lakhani, director of Migrant Rights and Justice at the Women’s Refugee Commission, told the Intercept she anticipates that under H.R. 30, immigrant survivors who are falsely accused and jailed could be convinced to sign no-contest waivers (which accept penalties without admitting guilt) in order to be released and reunited with their children. “They may have no idea that this is going to subject them to immigration consequences,” Lakhani said. “But now it’s going to subject them to mandatory deportation.” Joy Ziegeweid, director of immigration legal services at the Urban Justice Center’s Domestic Violence Project, told the outlet that nothing in the bill actually “[prevents] domestic violence or violence against women.”

And even if H.R. 30 only targeted abusers and not victims, it would still discourage immigrant victims from coming forward, because “survivors feel pressure to protect their abusers,” who often hold financial power over them and their children, Bedera said. “In domestic violence, victims’ and perpetrators’ lives are interconnected. A lot of things intended to hurt a perpetrator will hurt the victim more.”

H.R. 30 compounds with other new policies that further target and harm immigrant victims, advocates say. Last week, Trump rescinded the “sensitive zone” status of domestic violence shelters—as well as hospitals, churches, and schools—to allow ICE officers to enter these facilities and detain victims; this could be life-threatening for immigrant abuse victims, who may be unable to leave their abusers and seek shelter with their children. Then, there’s the aforementioned Laken Riley Act. The bill was introduced in the name of a 22-year-old nursing student who was killed in 2024 by an undocumented immigrant man who was previously charged with shoplifting. It allows immigrants, including those who legally live and work in the U.S., to be indefinitely detained without being charged with a crime, even if they’re arrested by mistake. A coalition of victim rights advocates strongly condemned the bill earlier this month, accusing its proponents of exploiting their cause to harm rather than help victims. Stephanie Love-Patterson, president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, said the Laken Riley Act would make immigrant victims “less likely to seek help from authorities, fearing retaliatory accusations that could lead to detention.”

In a press release, Mace said that “keeping criminal illegal aliens… off our streets is just common sense,” and “women should be able to walk down the street without fear.” To be clear, gender-based violence primarily takes place in the home, perpetrated by partners and acquaintances. Mace has also spent the last month terrorizing trans people by similarly, baselessly framing them as dangerous to cis women. This is the same, warped logic of anti-abortion laws that impose medically unnecessary requirements on clinics—for “women’s safety”—solely to shut them down.

At the core of this strategy is the right-wing gender binary, Bedera says, which establishes cis women as victims and cis men and patriarchy as their protectors. “We lose freedoms every time we’re expected to rigidly conform to a gender role… The phrase ‘protecting women’ really means ‘controlling women,’” she explained. And women who are at the margins—like immigrant survivors—are among the most vulnerable.