The Biden administration this past summer issued a policy limiting the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention of pregnant individuals. Now, a group of Senate Democrats is calling on Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Sec Alejandro Mayorkas to issue similar guidelines within the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency.

“Such a policy is vital to ensuring the dignity and health of these individuals and their newborn children, particularly during a continued global pandemic,” legislators tell Mayorkas. They note the 2020 case of one pregnant asylum-seeker forced to give birth at a border station after officials refused to take her to a hospital.

“After Border Patrol arrested her, she was sent to the Chula Vista Border Patrol station where she was forced to give birth standing up, delivering the baby into her pants, while holding onto the edge of a garbage can for support,” the 11 senators wrote. They note the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation (ACLUF) of San Diego & Imperial Counties (SDIC) and Jewish Family Service of San Diego (JFS) complaint filed last year on behalf of “Ana,” a 27-year-old asylum-seeker from Guatemala. That complaint detailed how agents extended her agony, and that of her infant, within the following days.

” For several days after the birth, Border Patrol agents and hospital staff denied Ana a shower even after she asked for one,” the complaint said. “When the hospital discharged her, instead of allowing her to reunite with her family in the United States, Border Patrol forced her to spend yet another night at the station in a cold cell with her newborn baby. There, they denied her a clean blanket for her baby.” The complaint said that only after Ana was released to a local shelter did she receive any compassionate care.

“A change in CBP policy is required to prevent what happened to the woman who was the subject of this report from ever occurring again—including CBP’s failure to ensure she was given timely medical care while she was in labor, lack of privacy during and following the traumatic birth, and a night of postpartum detention in which she was forced to sleep on a bench together with her two-day-old newborn U.S. citizen baby,” legislators tell Mayorkas (click here for a complete list of signatories). 

They point to a similar policy announced at ICE this past summer stating that federal immigration officials should not detain pregnant immigrants “unless release is prohibited by law or exceptional circumstances exist.” Advocates welcomed that move but expressed caution because, while the Obama administration had such a policy in place (the 45th president later rescinded it), on the ground, pregnant immigrants were often still detained by ICE officials. Issuing the policy is one matter; enforcing it is the other.

Civil rights complaints have noted how pregnant individuals have languished in harmful detention conditions. “Several women report being ignored by detention staff when requesting medical attention or experiencing serious delays even during health emergencies involving severe bleeding and pain,” a complaint filed with the Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and Office of the Inspector General in 2017 said. Teresa, one woman described in the report, was four months pregnant when she suffered a miscarriage while in detention.

“No parent should ever have to endure the trauma and abuse our client suffered when she was forced to give birth in a Border Patrol station and return for a night of postpartum detention with her newborn U.S. citizen baby,” said ACLUF-SDIC immigrants’ rights staff attorney Monika Langarcia. We can prevent this kind of mistreatment from ever happening again by altogether avoiding the detention of people who are pregnant, postpartum, or nursing. We welcome the senators’ demand to change CBP policy as a step towards rebuilding our asylum system at the border into one that welcomes people with dignity and humanity.”

“Policy changes must be enacted to ensure no one is forced to give birth in custody or immediately returned to a carceral setting with a newborn baby,” said JFS senior director of immigration services Kate Clark. “By aligning these policies with those already implemented by ICE, we can help ensure pregnant people and their families are treated with dignity and compassion as they seek their legal right to asylum in the U.S.”