By Maya Dusenbery • @mayadusenbery • 10 years ago

The US is locking up pregnant immigrants despite policy against it

According to official Immigration and Customs Enforcement guidelines, pregnant immigrants aren’t supposed to be detained except if they pose a public safety threat. ICE officials have claimed this is such a rare occurrence it’s not even worth asking about. 

But an investigation by Fusion found that 559 pregnant women have been detained by ICE in just six facilities since 2012. Unsurprisingly, given the inhumane conditions in many ICE detention centers, activists say pregnant detainees have been underfed and denied medical care, and at least 14 women had miscarriages while locked up.

(h/t Colorlines)

Related:
Take Action: tell President Obama to eliminate ICE’s incentive to deport
GOP: Preventing violence against women in detention centers is a “luxury”
Dream 9 exposing horrifying conditions in immigration detention

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

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