Two civil rights nonprofits filed a lawsuit Wednesday after a pregnant Guatemalan immigrant was left to give birth standing up and holding on to a trash can at the Chula Vista Border Patrol Station near San Diego, the nonprofits reported. The ACLU Foundation of San Diego and Imperial Counties and Jewish Family Service of San Diego filed the lawsuit with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General to urge an investigation of the U.S. Border Patrol's treatment of the woman, which Buzzfeed News earlier brought attention to in a post.
The woman was seeking asylum in the United States when she fled her country with her husband and two young daughters in early 2019. She was forced to wait in Mexico while her case was processed, thanks to a Trump administration policy subjecting thousands of others to a similar fate.
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“We are filing this complaint because CBP facilities, including U.S. Border Patrol stations, are categorically unsuitable for pregnant people and newborn babies. But the agency routinely and irresponsibly detains pregnant people, putting their health in grave danger by denying them access to proper medical care,” ACLU immigrant rights attorney Monika Langarica said in a news release. “This horrific case is just the most recent and one of the most egregious examples of this agency’s abuse.”
The woman, who the ACLU gave the pseudonym Ana to protect her identity, decided to leave Mexico with her family on Feb. 16, 2020, and although she was eight months pregnant and complaining of severe pain, border patrol authorities arrested her and refused to take the woman to the hospital, the ACLU said in its press release. She was awaiting processing at the Chula Vista facility when agents demanded she remain seated as she went into labor, the nonprofit said.
“Soon after arriving at the station, the woman partially delivered her baby into her pants while holding onto a garbage can,” the ACLU said. “It was then that Ana was finally transported to a hospital.” Even at the hospital, Ana was allegedly refused a shower, and when she was discharged, she was denied a clean blanket for her baby and forced to spend the night in a "cold cell" at the border patrol station, the ACLU said.
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal is leading legislators in a push to pressure the Department of Homeland Security to investigate the treatment of pregnant immigrants in the custody of Customs and Border Protection. "This inhumane treatment must end,” he tweeted Wednesday, also calling the California incident “deeply horrific.”
Kate Clark, senior director of immigration services at the Jewish Family Service of San Diego, told BuzzFeed News Tuesday that although Ana and her family have been reunited with family members in the United States, her case is just one example of many of how asylum seekers are mistreated. “We’ve been in contact with her and … letting her know what advocacy is happening on her behalf,” Clark told the news site. “It was such a horrific experience that, she’s expressed to us, if shedding light on her case could make a difference in this happening to other people, that’s all the more reason to continue to move forward with the complaint.”