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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will not detain most people who find themselves pregnant, postpartum, or nursing, based on a brand new coverage launched on July 9. Nonetheless, ICE didn’t decide to a complete ban, saying that there’ll nonetheless be “very restricted circumstances” that may enable the company to detain pregnant individuals.
The transfer is a transparent shift away from the Trump administration, which in 2017 ended the presumption of launch for such people. Within the two years following that change, the speed at which ICE detained pregnant individuals skyrocketed by 52%, growing from 1,380 in 2016 to just about 2,100 pregnant individuals in 2018.
In asserting the brand new coverage, ICE Director Tae Johnson stated the change “displays our dedication to deal with all people with respect and dignity whereas nonetheless imposing our nation’s legal guidelines.”
ICE’s new coverage revokes the Trump-era observe. It additionally goes a step additional than the Obama administration, which usually exempted pregnant individuals from detention, however didn’t embody those that had been nursing. Moreover, the Biden administration coverage consists of individuals who gave beginning inside the final yr.
It is a much-needed step towards safeguarding the wellbeing of pregnant people in detention, in addition to the well being of their child.
For years, advocates have raised severe considerations in regards to the detention and therapy of pregnant individuals in immigration detention.
In a grievance filed with the Trump administration, a number of people shared testimonies of how traumatizing it was to be pregnant in detention. It not solely impacted them, however the well being of their infants and talent to arrange for credible worry interviews with asylum officers.
In a single testimony, a 31-year-old Honduran girl named Teresa recounted struggling a miscarriage whereas in detention.
Whereas in detention, she knowledgeable ICE officers that she was 4 months pregnant, bleeding, and in ache. Regardless of this, her requests for medical consideration had been denied. After struggling the miscarriage days later, officers confiscated the medication she had bought from the ICE commissary. Teresa remained locked up, despite the fact that she was experiencing complications, weight reduction, and different well being points.
One other asylum seeker, a 28-year-old girl from Honduras, described the nervousness round making ready for her credible worry interview whereas pregnant in detention:
“Being detained and making ready for a reputable worry [interview] has been very aggravating for me, which I really feel is harmful for my child. So as to put together for my credible worry interview with a [legal assistant], I’ve needed to focus on my historical past of sexual abuse and home violence intimately.”
The compounded trauma of being detained whereas experiencing a tough being pregnant can’t be overstated. The Biden administration’s resolution to proactively search to keep away from enforcement actions towards pregnant people is a protracted overdue, welcome change.
FILED UNDER: Biden-Harris Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement
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