FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 23, 2020
Contact: Nikki Metzgar
(202) 599-7642 / media@napawf.org

Today, the Trump administration issued a new rule targeting pregnant people of color, or people that could be perceived to be pregnant, visiting the U.S. The new rule would make it harder for them to obtain tourist visas and follows an incident in which a Hong Kong airline, under pressure by government authorities, forced a woman to take a pregnancy test before she was allowed to board a plane to the U.S. Pacific island of Saipan.

National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum Executive Director Sung Yeon Choimorrow denounced the rule and issued the following statement in response:

“This ugly development is ultimately an issue of racial profiling of Asians. The Trump administration will go to any lengths to demean immigrant women. Millions of Asian people come to the U.S. to visit their families and targeting them because of their race or country of origin is discriminatory and wrong. 

As an immigrant woman who has experienced harassment at an airport when I was pregnant, this incident and the administration’s rule are disturbing, invasive, and reveal the coercive and invasive methods that our government will use to enforce the new rule. This administration has a track record of detaining pregnant people and has made it impossible for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault to seek asylum. There is no justification for the harm they have done to immigrant women or for their xenophobic agenda.”

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The National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) is the only multi-issue, progressive, community organizing and policy advocacy organization for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women and girls in the U.S. NAPAWF’s mission is to build collective power so that all AAPI women and girls can have full agency over our lives, our families, and our communities.