What we know

Ripped away from infant children, shackled to beds, forced to miscarry without proper medical care—these are the realities of pregnancy and early motherhood in ICE custody.

Over Trump’s first year back in office, more than 1,000 credible reports of rights abuses in immigration detention centers have been identified. Among these are the horror stories shared by pregnant, postpartum, and nursing immigrants in custody; some held for months, others deported, all facing dangerous, inhumane treatment.

Members of Congress have been trying to gain access to ICE facilities, even as the Trump administration fights to restrict it. Congressional visits are a key means of insight and oversight, but much of what goes on inside detention centers still remains hidden from view. Following the lapse of a reporting requirement for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), even the number of pregnant, postpartum, or nursing people in custody is unknown.

Based on ICE’s own rules, that number should be near zero. The official ICE policy specifically states that “ICE should not detain, arrest, or take into custody for an administrative violation of the immigration laws individuals known to be pregnant, postpartum, or nursing” except in exceptional circumstances.

But the many reports of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing people in custody suggest ICE is routinely departing from this policy. According to first-hand accounts from detainees, here’s what’s happening to pregnant, nursing, and postpartum people in ICE detention centers.

Miscarriages

They’re miscarrying.

Women in ICE custody are losing their pregnancies.

Colombian immigrant Angie Rodriguez was detained by ICE following a routine check-in with immigration officials. While in custody, she discovered she was pregnant. Despite confirmation by medical staff, she was not offered prenatal educational materials—or even allowed to keep her ultrasound. Nor were there improvements in nutrition: she was forced to choose between eating small, foul-smelling meals served by the detention center or buying highly processed foods like instant noodles. A little over a month after she entered detention, Rodriguez miscarried.

Her experience, Rodriguez says, is not unique: “This is happening to me and other women.”

Another pregnant detainee, identified only as Lucia for fear of retaliation, began bleeding heavily in the middle of the night. She did not receive medical attention until the next day, when she was left by medical staff in a small room to bleed alone. Lucia was eventually transported to an emergency room roughly an hour away, her arms and legs in shackles. She had lost so much blood she needed a blood transfusion. The hospital told her she had miscarried and then returned her to ICE custody. For another month, Lucia experienced “abdominal pain and heavy bleeding,” before she was ultimately deported.

Denial of medical care

They’re being denied medical care.

Multiple pregnant women have reported medical mistreatment and a dire lack of prenatal care in detention centers.

A 23-year-old Mexican woman, pregnant with what would have been her first child, miscarried while in ICE custody. She was hospitalized but remained in significant pain and continued to bleed following her return to the detention center. Her partner, unable to contact her for several days, became distressed and called his senator’s office. Despite the woman’s request for medical care and her partner’s outside attempts to help, she did not receive a follow-up for eleven days.

One pregnant woman in custody reportedly bled for days before she was taken to a hospital—where she was left alone in a room without water or medical assistance for over 24 hours while she miscarried. Another, repeatedly requesting medical assistance, was told to “just drink water” rather than receiving an exam.

Even routine prenatal care is difficult to access. Pregnant detainees have confided in immigration attorneys that they’ve waited “weeks” to see a doctor, only to have their scheduled appointments canceled.

Denial of basic necessities

They’re being denied basic necessities.

As the Trump administration attempts to hide the abuse of detainees, some horrors are impossible to conceal. In Honduras, new mothers deported back from U.S. detention centers were so severely malnourished that their bodies had stopped producing breast milk.  

Similar reports by pregnant detainees confirm the poor quality and scarcity of food in detention centers, as well as a lack of access to prenatal vitamins.  

Postpartum detainees have also described the lack of basic, essential items for new motherhood, such as breast pumps. An El Salvadorian mother of two was forced to use her hands to massage milk out instead of using a pump, as the jail where she was detained did not have one. Her 22-month-old son, from whom she was separated, has an allergy to other forms of milk, and this was the only way she could continue to provide him with breastmilk.   

Solitary confinement & shackling

They’re being put in solitary confinement and shackled.

Inhumane conditions are putting pregnant detainees’ physical health, mental well-being, and pregnancy outcomes at risk.  

One pregnant woman, identified as Marie, was detained by ICE while traveling and held in solitary confinement for at least three days.  ICE agents “did not believe her when she informed them of her pregnancy.” Upon release, she suffered symptoms of psychological trauma and eventually developed eclampsia in her third trimester—a life-threatening pregnancy complication characterized by seizures and dangerously high blood pressure. 

Neysis Mariena, six months pregnant with twins, was in ICE custody when she started experiencing contractions; in the hospital, agents shackled her to a bed. Other pregnant women report being transported—including across the country—with shackles at the ankles, hands, and waist.  

Further reports detail pregnant women sleeping on the floor in overcrowded cells and enduring abusive treatment from guards.  

Separation from families

They’re being separated from their families.

Nursing mothers are being ripped away from their children—sometimes literally.  

When ICE detained Heidy Sánchez, her daughter was breastfeeding in her arms. Sánchez was handcuffed; agents took her daughter, a citizen, away. Two days later Sánchez was deported to Cuba. She has now been apart from her daughter and husband for eight months.  

Cecil Elvir-Quinonez was arrested in front of her children on New Year’s Eve; she has not seen them since January 1. Elvir-Quinonez’s youngest child, at five months old, was still breastfeeding at the time of her arrest—and has, in her absence, been repeatedly sick. Her five year old has been having trouble speaking. “That’s never happened to him before now,” she says. “He was there when the police arrested me and he was crying to the police, ‘Don’t take my mommy!’” Elvir-Quinonez, who learned in custody that she was pregnant with her third child, now faces deportation to a country where she has no close family. Both of her children are U.S. citizens.  

Nayra Guzmán was arrested 15 days after giving birth. Following a difficult delivery that ended in a c-section, her daughter remained in the NICU, unable to eat or breathe independently. Guzmán was on the way to the hospital when ICE officers took her away. Though c-section recovery typically takes between six to eight weeks, Guzmán was denied basic care—she spent her first night on a bench with no blanket—and was given no access to information about her child. 

Guzmán has since been released, but each visit to her daughter is accompanied by the possibility that she will be arrested again. “It’s a deep fear,” she says, “and this feeling that there are eyes watching you everywhere.” 

How you can help

How you can help

There’s a lot we still don’t know about the treatment of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing people in ICE detention centers. But the picture emerging—miscarrying women denied medical care, pregnant women in shackles, nursing women torn from their children—is one of widespread and systematic abuse.  

Congress has the power and responsibility to conduct oversight, bear witness, and demand transparency. Tell your representatives that they must visit ICE detention centers and investigate how pregnant women—and others in custody—are being treated.  

Add your name to demand accountability now. Thank you for fighting with us in defense of dignity, care, and human rights.