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Social Justice Education

Border enforcement and free-trade policies directly affect the lives of working people and immigrants. Researchers, advocates, and activists for human rights can find history and resources on this site.

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Women and Globalization

Exploitation in global factories has led women workers to fight for fair wages and empower themselves through fair trade networks.

Erasing the border

Reimagining the Border

With social critique and humor artists and activists reimagine human relationships along the U.S.-Mexico border.

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Immigration and Detention

Women on the Border offers resources for the struggle to uphold the human rights of migrants and the undocumented.

Our History

Women on the Border was founded in 2001 to support the empowerment of women working in the NAFTA factories (maquiladoras) at the U.S.-Mexico border.

In recent years, as U.S. policy has become more hostile than ever to migrants, workers, and people of color, Women on the Border has sought to promote scholarship and activism calling for freedom, justice and human dignity.

 

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ICE TERRORISM PERSISTS

ICE TERRORISM PERSISTS

by | Sep 4, 2026 |

There aren't any other words to describe the humanitarian consequences of Mr. Trump's anti-immigrant campaign launched after he took over the Oval office in January 2025. It is terrorism legitimated by a country in the grips of a fascistic mindset: At all costs...

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WOMEN ON THE BORDER

4 days ago

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www.facebook.com/share/p/1B1QrYRDuS/BREAKING🚨 ICE just took the mother and primary caregiver of a boy with Down syndrome — a Wisconsin teacher her district named employee of the year.Wendy Mendez teaches Spanish at Vel Phillips Middle School in Oshkosh. ICE arrested her in Milwaukee on October 14, and a friend says she was deported to Costa Rica last week, as Vladyslav Plyaka first reported in Advance-Titan.Homeland Security says Mendez came to the U.S. legally in August 2020 on a temporary basis, didn't leave by February 2021, and was ordered removed on September 9 for missing an immigration hearing. The agency says she "received due process."Her friend Deb Nez says Mendez never knew about the hearing. The court sent the notice to the family's old address, even though immigration officials had their new one within days of the move. "This was not the first time that USCIS had made that mistake," Nez wrote. She says lawyers had already filed proof of the error with the court, and an attorney told the family Mendez had a stay of removal in place.Nez says ICE moved her through six detention centers in eight days: Wisconsin, Chicago, Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas. Three days in solitary confinement. Concrete floors, blankets like rags, beds covered in mold. Mendez told her it was "worse than you can imagine."Mendez moved to Oshkosh in 2020 with her husband and two sons. One son has Down syndrome, and she was his primary caregiver. Nez wrote that every time he comes home from school and sees her car, he starts yelling that Mommy is home.In 2025 the district named her one of its employees of the year. In the video, the superintendent walks into her classroom with a balloon and a mug, and she gets emotional while her students applaud. A check of online court records turned up no criminal case against her.The district says she's an employee in good standing and her absence has nothing to do with safety or performance. She's been put on unpaid leave.Homeland Security's response included the line "being in detention is a choice," along with a pitch for $3,000 and a free flight to self-deport. The agency still says she will "remain in custody pending her removal.""She is in Costa Rica," her friend said. "I don't know why ICE is saying that she's still detained."A vigil for the missing is set for Friday at 6 p.m. in downtown Oshkosh.If you appreciate my posts, it would mean the world if you followed my page. Thank you for being here. ...

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www.facebook.com/share/18dKZngGJj/?mibextid=wwXIfrBREAKING🚨 ICE just DEPORTED a Fresno dad who has lived here since he was 5, and his wife of 31 years is now packing up their house because the family can't make rent without him.On the morning of Oct. 1, ICE agents pulled Luis Arreguin, 54, over as he drove to work near Fresno, where he has lived since he was 5. One agent told him, "I've been watching you." He's had no recent run-ins with law enforcement, and a public records search turned up no recent criminal history. That same morning, agents swept his small farmworker town. His wife called him, saying "It's empty, babe."Arreguin is a father of four and a grandfather of four. In ICE custody his blood pressure climbed until he ended up in a Bakersfield emergency room. When agents asked if he was afraid to go back to Mexico, he said yes. He thought that would at least get him in front of a judge.Instead, ICE sent him to Camp East Montana on the outskirts of El Paso, where the agency's own inspectors had found dozens of violations. After five days there, he says, his phone access was cut off and he was put on a plane.He says about 300 people were on that flight, chained at the wrists and ankles, including 22 women and a 14-year-old. Over 36 hours of travel, agents restricted bathroom trips and water. Officers taunted him, holding up phones with news stories about his arrest: "Oh, look, it's the famous Mr. Arreguin." Right before landing, he says, agents rushed down the aisle pulling off the shackles. Other passengers backed up his account. ICE didn't answer questions about any of it."Everybody on that plane had their work clothes on," he said.The plane landed in Tapachula, near Mexico's border with Guatemala. Mexican officials gave him a debit card worth about $130. He made his way to Mexicali, in a country he doesn't know, where people speak a language he barely understands.In 31 years of marriage, he and his wife had never spent a night apart. Now she's packing up their Fresno home because they can't make rent without him. Their two youngest kids, 6 and 10, will have to change schools. His daughter Elaina is maxing out her credit cards to pay for his motel and food.He's looking for a lawyer to fight the deportation. "I have to fight," he said.If you appreciate my posts, it would mean the world if you followed my page. Thank you for being here. ...

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