The stories of pregnant ICE detainees suffering mistreatment, isolation, and inadequate care have teemed during Trump 2.0—but per a new piece by the Guardian, we don’t even know the half of it. And neither does ICE.
The outlet on Tuesday reported that it obtained government documents revealing that the administration has not only detained a record number of pregnant immigrants—but that it also lost track of how many miscarriages have happened on its watch, since October 2025. This comes after Congress in March that year let lapse a rule requiring the Department of Homeland Security to provide a biannual report on how many pregnant immigrants were being detained, with detailed reasons as to why.
For its reporting, the Guardian spoke to eight detainees from the Dilley Detention Center in Texas, all of whom said they weren’t getting adequate prenatal or postnatal medical care. One of them, who’s four months pregnant, said she was scolded by a nurse for not being able to speak English.
The outlet also spoke to a woman who suffered a miscarriage while chained to a hospital bed. She hadn’t known she was pregnant when she was suddenly detained during a required ICE appointment in February, but after she was sent to a facility in Kentucky, she was given a pregnancy test that returned positive. She started suddenly bleeding a month later, and had to repeatedly ask for a doctor before she was brought to the emergency room an entire day later. She found out she lost her pregnancy over the phone, by an interpreter in Spanish. “I don’t know what is going to happen to me,” she told the Guardian.
Grimly, none of these stories are an anomaly. Last year, a letter by the ACLU cited a woman recounting being shackled by her arms and legs while bleeding from an active miscarriage; a report by Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-Ga.) office found out a woman was only given a check-up appointment 11 days after miscarrying; and another was told to just “drink water” instead of receiving a medical exam. (These are just a few examples.)
Technically, under ICE Directive 11032.4, ICE isn’t supposed to even be detaining anyone pregnant, postpartum, or breastfeeding—except in “exceptional circumstances” that it says are “very limited,” such as if the individual poses some national security concern. That rule’s been routinely violated under the tenures of Secretary Kristi Noem and Markwayne Mullin, however, and in March, DHS only revealed an estimated (and likely undercounted) number of pregnant and postpartum detainees after Dem. lawmakers demanded more answers.
“Systemic failures in documentation and transparency are why WRC needed to create its own Detention Pregnancy Tracker, but these external tools can never replace essential monitoring and care inside facilities,” continues Lakhani.
