In December 2023, a Colombian woman who was four-months pregnant crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with her husband into Arizona, where Border Patrol agents apprehended the couple, according to Monika Langarica, senior staff attorney at the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at University of California Los Angeles School of Law.
The agents held the pregnant woman in custody separately from her husband. After 13 days in a Border Patrol station, her husband was released. The following day, two weeks after they were apprehended, the pregnant wife was transferred to long-term immigration custody at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona. Under CBP guidelines, people are not supposed to be in its custody for more than three days.
Soon after officials transferred her to long-term detention, the woman had a miscarriage in custody.
Then officials deported her to Colombia without her husband, who remained in Los Angeles.
“It was a really traumatic experience for them,” Langarica said. The husband got in touch with Langarica shortly after his wife’s deportation, she said.
The family has declined to be identified or interviewed but agreed to allow advocates to tell their story to push Customs and Border Protection to change its policies toward people who are pregnant, postpartum or nursing.
“One of the things that we have repeatedly sought to clarify with the agency is that detention in CBP custody as a whole is just categorically unsuitable for this population,” Langarica said.
Langarica’s organization, along with Jewish Family Service of San Diego, the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties and the national ACLU sent a letter to the acting head of CBP last month to ask for a new rule that would limit the time that pregnant people spend in custody to 12 hours or less. It also asks to ensure that they’re not separated from their families and that they’re not returned to holding cells after spending time in hospitals. The letter was signed by 138 organizations and 1,462 individuals.
A spokesperson for CBP acknowledged receipt of the letter.
“The health and safety of individuals in CBP custody, our workforce, and communities we serve is paramount. CBP officers and agents prioritize the health and safety of all those they encounter by providing appropriate medical care and humanitarian assistance as needed and by routinely coordinating with emergency medical services to assist individuals in need,” said the unidentified spokesperson via email. “At the direction of the Senior Official Performing the Duties of CBP Commissioner, Troy Miller, CBP has undertaken significant steps to ensure that at-risk or medically fragile individuals receive appropriate care and spend the minimum amount of time possible in CBP custody.”
The letter is the fourth attempt by the San Diego-based organizations to get the federal agency to make changes to the treatment of pregnant people in custody. The campaign kicked off after a woman gave birth in a Chula Vista Border Patrol station in 2020 and alleged mistreatment and lack of medical care. A resulting report from the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security in 2021 found that the woman was provided medical care at the station, but it also strongly criticized CBP’s decision to keep the woman and her newborn in custody overnight following the birth.
In 2022, CBP changed its policies to prioritize processing and release of children born in CBP custody and their families with published guidelines calling for their release within 12 hours.
The advocates say CBP should apply that processing timeline to all people who are pregnant, postpartum or nursing and their families.
“That change is really important because it illustrates where there is a will the agency is able to put this 12-hour upper limit on a vulnerable population,” Langarica said. “What we ultimately want and need to do is to prevent these births in custody. The only way to do that is to reduce the amount of time that pregnant, postpartum and nursing people are in custody.”
In Other News
No more free calls: Immigration and Customs Enforcement abruptly ended a program that began during the pandemic and allowed people in its custody to make some free phone calls each month, as I reported for Capital & Main last week. Detainees across the country have responded with hunger and labor strikes, and attorneys are worried that they won’t be able to communicate as easily with clients.
False imprisonment of a child: A San Diego federal judge ruled last month that CBP falsely imprisoned a 9-year-old girl and awarded her family more than $1.5 million in damages, Alex Riggins reported for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Nonstop to Beijing: Travelers can now book a nonstop flight to Beijing from Tijuana’s airport, as Alexandra Mendoza reported for the U-T. Mendoza’s article pointed out that Mexico has seen increased tourism from China. As an immigration reporter, my mind immediately has questions related to asylum pathways and the U.S. government’s system of external deterrence. We know many migrants fly to Cancun and then to Tijuana in order to cross north, and the U.S. government coordinates closely with Mexican officials to try to keep migrants from getting on those Tijuana-bound flights once they’re at the Cancun airport. I’ll be watching to see what measures might be put in place for the flight returning from Beijing to Tijuana.
Babies left out: As families wait in limbo months to request asylum in the U.S. via appointments made in the phone app CBP One, other parts of their lives keep moving forward – that includes births, which have complicated families’ ability to cross for their appointments because they can’t update their registration to include their new family members, Gustavo Solis reported for KPBS.
Living on the streets: Some migrants are ending up living in parks and other encampments around San Diego, according to SofÃa MejÃas-Pascoe for inewsource and Solis for KPBS.
100 years of salad: Tijuana’s iconic caesar salad just turned 100, Mendoza reported for the U-T. The city held a four-day celebration.