Once the most trusted branch of government, the Supreme Court has been hijacked by the Republican Party for its war on equality and civil liberties. Latinos, who make up nearly 19% of the U.S. population, are seen by many conservatives as a threat. Not surprisingly, the effect of the court's rulings will fall heavily on Latinos and other people of color.
Its plans to revoke Roe v. Wade, for example, will disproportionately harm low-income women with limited time and resources to travel across states for abortions. The most affected will be the millions of undocumented women, mostly Latinas, who face Border Patrol checkpoints within the 100-mile border zone. Many won't travel far for fear of deportation.
Forcing Latinas to carry unwanted pregnancies traps them in poverty, where they lack political strength to resist their exploitation. "It's about power and it's about control," Chio Valerio-Gonzalez, organizing director at Latino advocacy group Mijente, told me. "If you keep people poor, you keep them working, you keep them with their heads down."
