Let’s Talk About Migration: Trumpist Persection

ByDiego Torres

This editorial by Diego Torres appears as the introduction to the March 2026 issue of Hablemos de Migración, a newsletter on migration issues published by the Frente Amplio de Mexicanos y Migrantes. We encourage you to subscribe. The English version of the March 2026 issue is available for download.

To speak of migration is also to speak of women and their struggle. March 8th has been internationally recognized as International Women’s Day. The struggle
that began with women during the Russian Revolution in 1917 fueled feminist
movements. Years earlier, the Adelitas, Mexican women who fought in the Mexican Revolution against the ruling dictatorship, also waged this struggle. It is a struggle that continues today, seeking to end the violence that still plagues women.

In 2017, feminist organizations from more than 50 countries called for an international women’s strike to protest the various forms of violence against women. This new wave of protests has led to improvements in the situation for some women; however, the vast majority continue to suffer under a patriarchal and sexist system where femicides remain at alarming rates.

Migrant women are an extremely vulnerable group. There are thousands of heartbreaking stories of women who were violently forced to flee their homes, compelling them to seek a better future through migration.

The dangers faced by migrant women are no different from those faced by other women; what is different is the degree of exposure to these dangers. Regardless of the path they take, violence seems to be waiting for them. Whether their route leads through Africa, the Mediterranean, the Darién Gap, across Mexican territory, or along the southern border of the United States, these are routes where the constant threat lurks at every turn.

The violence suffered by migrant women along their journey includes robbery, assault, rape, kidnapping, and murder. Millions of women who have endured this violence on their migration journey are now being persecuted in the United States by an extremely xenophobic and misogynistic government, led by Donald Trump, for whom migrants are despicable and guilty of sullying the blood of what he considers a superior race.

To understand the danger migrant women face in the United States, we must analyze Trump; his view of migrants as unworthy beings, coupled with his contempt for women, gives us a clear picture of this danger. Trump’s morality can be assessed by the obscene comments he makes constantly; one need only recall how he referred to his daughter in 2006 on the show The View, saying, “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, maybe I would have dated her”; or when he was caught on camera in 1992 on the show Entertainment. On the Christmas special, Trump made comments about a 10-year-old girl, saying, “I’m going to date her in 10 years. Can you believe that?” This violence from Trump has continued over the years, and he has recently been caught insulting female reporters, such as Katie Rogers of The New York Times. After she published an article about Trump’s health, he called her a “third-rate reporter, ugly inside and out” on his website, Truth Social.

To this, we must add the most uncomfortable issue for the current White House administration: the “Epstein Files,” in which Donald Trump’s name, according to the New York Times, appears 38,000 times. These files represent the pinnacle of the corruption and rot that governs the most powerful government in the world. And the paradox is that a woman is leading the defense of this government. Pam Bondi, who worked for over 18 years as a prosecutor handling domestic violence and homicide cases, now staunchly defends a figure like Trump; it is inconceivable and demonstrates the danger to which migrant women are exposed in the United States. The head of the Department of Justice idolizes Trump and allows and justifies everything he does. Bondi justifies injustice, and Kristi Noem, in charge of Homeland Security, promotes the violent persecution, detention, and deportation of migrants in
the United States.

In October 2025, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) denounced the precarious situation faced by pregnant women, who were found chained and without prenatal care in detention centers. Videos on social media have shown the violent arrest of migrant women and even the murder of Renne Good, a U.S. citizen, who died after being shot by an ICE agent, a clear example of the rampant violence of the Trump administration. The Trump administration’s hatred of all those who oppose it is undeniable, and even more undeniable is its contempt for women; incredibly, women are among its main defenders.

In a month where the fight for the defense of women’s rights is indispensable and essential; to condemn these actions and to call on the migrant community to defend them, but with a greater effort: that of migrant women.

Diego Torres is the founder of El Frente Amplio de Mexicanos y Migrantes, an organization founded in 2022 with the goal of strengthening the unity of the migrant community, contributing to the consolidation of the Fourth Transformation in Mexico’s public life, and advocating for immigration reform in the main migrant-receiving countries; as well as the editor of Hablemos de Migración.