Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) already detains pregnant women, and now under new Trump administration policy, they want to detain even more. In 2016 alone, ICE reportedly detained 500 pregnant women, “despite substantial evidence that detention of this particularly vulnerable population has been linked to serious health implications to the mother and unborn child,” according to the American Immigration Council. The fact is that this practice is inhumane, barbaric and deadly. Congressmembers Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), in a joint op-ed:
No pregnant woman should have to endure this terrible treatment, or be forced into excruciating fear of how detention will impact her and her unborn child’s health. Nor should she have to fear for the health of her pregnancy – yet, tragically, there were at least three confirmed miscarriages in detention in fiscal year 2017, and more have been reported.
We recently led 68 of our colleagues in sending a letter to then-Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke expressing our concerns about the increased rates of detention of pregnant immigrant women across the U.S., and asking for clarification of ICE’s current policies on detaining pregnant immigrant women.
Reps. Roybal-Allard and Jayapal, themselves long-time immigrants rights champions, write that as “co-chairs of the Women’s Working Group on Immigration Reform, we held a forum to shed further light on the experiences of immigrant women who have been detained under the Trump administration. What we heard was profoundly troubling,” including one detainee who found out she was pregnant with her fourth child just days before she was swept up by ICE outside her home.
Maria said she’d had a history of difficult pregnancies—two required bed rest, and all three of her kids were premature. In custody, she began cramping—“a sign that this pregnancy will be similar.” But when she tried to alert ICE, she said she was just given a Tylenol. “If you have a miscarriage here, it’s not our fault, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” she says one doctor told her. “Solis said that she didn’t receive the vitamins or lab work until after media outlets began investigating her case.”
Maria is in no way alone. Reps. Roybal-Allard and Jayapal led a group of 70 House members in “sending a letter to then-Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke expressing our concerns about the increased rates of detention of pregnant immigrant women across the U.S., and asking for clarification of ICE’s current policies on detaining pregnant immigrant women,” outlining several horrific instances of expectant moms being denied medical care, or receiving the scant minimum that immigration officials attempted to pass off as medical care:
- Teresa, a Honduran asylum seeker, reported to CBP personnel at the San Ysidro port of entry that she was pregnant, in pain, and bleeding. Over the next four days, after she was transferred to ICE custody, she received no medical care despite having a medical intake screening upon her arrival at the Otay Mesa Detention Center. It was not until six days after she initially reported her pain and bleeding to CBP personnel that she was informed that she had miscarried.
- Jacinta found out she was pregnant while in detention at the Northwest Detention Center. When ICE told her she was being deported, she began to feel anxious and to develop pains and nausea. Several days later, she began to have bleeding. Despite telling medical personal she was in severe pain, Jacinta, was forced to wait over an hour to see a doctor, who ordered her to be transported to a hospital. Because the ambulance was so slow in coming, Jacinta had to be transported sitting up in the back of a patrol car, which made the bleeding worse. At the hospital, she learned she had miscarried.
- Ana, who was pregnant when she was detained at Eloy, became so desperate to get out of detention because she feared it would harm her child that she accepted deportation back into the hands of her abusive partner.
“It is clear to us that America needs a far more humane and just immigration detention system,” they continue. “That is why we joined with our colleague Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) to introduce and co-sponsor the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act. Our bill would release detained pregnant women, and other people who have good cause to be released, including, if needed, into community-based detention alternatives. This bill also restores meaningful oversight, transparency and accountability to our detention system.”
This supposed “pro-life” administration’s immigration policies are one of those death panels some conservatives tried to warn us about. “We will not stand idly by as the negative effects of this administration’s detention policies on pregnant immigrant women continue to unfold,” the Congress members continue. “We will continue to fight for the health and dignity of all the detained pregnant women who, out of fear and desperation, have come to America. In keeping with our American values, they deserve humane treatment and compassion.”