As we look back on June’s National Safety Month, which focuses on how to keep ourselves safe in the workplace and at home, one has to wonder: When will the safety of women become a national priority? Thursday night’s debate would have been the perfect time for CNN moderator Dana Bash to pose a question that ties border security to the security of women.
It has not been lost on us that the Biden administration seems disinterested in keeping women and girls safe. IWF’s “Take Back Title IX” Bus Tour brought attention to this and how our federal policies affect women’s safety and security in sports. But what is also lost is that the disregard for border security has exacted a great toll on the lives of young women and their families:
The man who attacked, raped, and brutally beat 37-year-old mother-of-five Rachel Morin had entered our country illegally and been deported three times.
The two men who strangled 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray had entered the country illegally and were released with a court date, which they disregarded.
The man who raped and murdered 22-year-old Laken Riley was paroled into the country illegally because the El Paso detention facility had reached capacity.
As visiting fellow Samantha Janney wrote:
America’s uncontrolled, unsecured border is putting our people and, more specifically, our children in danger. And while this is clearly a political issue, it’s an economic, national security, and public health issue as well. The ongoing situation at the southern border is a crisis of epic and historic proportions. Illegal border crossings are at a record high, children are being abandoned by smugglers, women and children are being victimized, people are losing their lives, and crime is soaring.
On our SheThinks podcast, the Washington Examiner’s Anna Giaritelli tied in the crime aspect of untenable borders. Crime that, as a woman, affected her personally. A former deputy assistant in the Trump administration also pointed out the cost to women caused by illegal immigration in an X post:
Women and children are the most vulnerable and have been adversely affected by the continued disregard of the migrant influx on our Southern border. Similarly, regulations like the rewrite of Title IX, women being forced to share bathrooms and locker rooms with biological men, and biological men being housed in women’s prisons increase the dangers on the homefront. Every place where a woman should feel safe are the places where women are being violated, whether by this present administration’s action or inaction.
That would be a worthy subject for any debate, but especially last week’s presidential debate. The candidate who can speak to the need to protect women and girls, support legislation that secures this, and institute policies that focus on women’s safety and protection is the candidate who can win women’s votes.