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Justice Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump鈥檚 other appointee, did not.

鈥斅爀ven minor ones 鈥斅爊o matter how long ago they completed their sentence, and without an opportunity for a bail hearing.

It was a bitter confirmation of Kavanaugh鈥檚 hardline views on immigration during the justice鈥檚 first week on the court.

His confirmation process over the last several weeks was just as bitter, marred by credible sexual assault allegations against him by more than one woman.

For hundreds of immigrant women, these issues 鈥� sexual violence and immigrant detention 鈥� are not unrelated.

Take Valentina (not her real name). Since the mid-1990s, Valentina has been working in secret to . As Lizzie Presser recently wrote for The California Sunday Magazine:

Valentina isn鈥檛 a social worker or a therapist or a lawyer. She is an immigrant who opens her home to women whose husbands or boyfriends abuse them. The women who come are waitresses, saleswomen, fruit and vegetable pickers, housecleaners. Like Silvia, many are ashamed, reluctant to point a finger or to file for divorce. Most are undocumented, and before President Trump鈥檚 election, they went to Valentina when they didn鈥檛 know their rights or when shelters didn鈥檛 have space. Since Trump, even those with papers avoid shelters and mistrust the law.

In fact, since Trump鈥檚 election, Valentina is no longer the only woman doing this work. Ten years after she started inviting survivors into her home, Valentina met Mily Trevi帽o-Sauceda, the founder of L铆deres Campesinas, a group that organizes female farmworkers.

Together, they鈥檝e built a network of women who house immigrant survivors of sexual violence, often in secret. They give them tips for collecting evidence, accompany them to see prosecutors and even testify in court on their behalf.

Valentina can count more than 30 Latina women in California alone who have opened their homes for survivors. As the , Presser writes, their work has become even more critical:

Within months of Trump鈥檚 inauguration, Los Angeles police had found that sexual assault reports among Latinos had fallen by a quarter. Half a year in, domestic violence reports had dropped 13 percent in San Diego and 18 percent in San Francisco. More than a dozen major rape crisis centers across California estimated that their Latina clientele had shrunk anywhere from 10 percent to 80 percent.

Women in all sorts of communities have long faced , but immigrant women told Valentina that their partners had threatened to call ICE, or that they were afraid their abusive partners would be deported and leave them without child support, or that their children would be taken away from them.

鈥淭hey鈥檇 learned that they could not depend on federal or state agencies, or emergency services, or even crisis centers,鈥� Valentina鈥檚 partner, Trevi帽o-Sauceda, told Presser.

Instead, they鈥檙e building their own system, off the books and in the shadows.

The Trump administration has not been shy about its anti-immigrant agenda. Just this week, an Associated Press investigation found that 鈥斅爋ften children separated from parents at the border.

Those children need to be reunited with their parents, not adopted. Women who have survived sexual assault need support, not condemnation.

There鈥檚 a lot of work to do 鈥斅燼nd here in the Deep South, we鈥檙e committed to every step of it.

The Editors

P.S. Here are some other pieces we think are valuable this week:

• by Donna Ladd for The Guardian
• by Jennifer Miller for The Washington Post
• by Shane Bauer for Slate
• by Christine Dimattei for WLRN

人兽性交's Weekend Reads are a weekly summary of the most important reporting and commentary from around the country on civil rights, economic and racial inequity, and hate and extremism.聽Sign up to receive Weekend Reads every Saturday morning.

Photo by Cinthya Santos Briones