{ "archive_path": "archive/1789506015.574357", "base_url": "www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/sep/15/ice-detention-miscarriages-pregnancy", "basename": "ice-detention-miscarriages-pregnancy", "bookmarked_date": "2026-09-15 21:00", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/sep/15/ice-detention-miscarriages-pregnancy", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.theguardian.com", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/sep/15/ice-detention-miscarriages-pregnancy.html" }, "domain": "www.theguardian.com", "extension": "", "hash": "4ZRYBS3NPPS95PPJPKS6", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.theguardian.com" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-16T04:29:22.803521+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789506015.574357", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-16T04:29:22.077887+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/sep/15/ice-detention-miscarriages-pregnancy" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-16T04:29:23.101595+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789506015.574357", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-16T04:29:22.812424+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/sep/15/ice-detention-miscarriages-pregnancy" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-09-16T04:29:33.385414+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789506015.574357", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-16T04:29:29.020904+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmphgvt65oc", "https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/sep/15/ice-detention-miscarriages-pregnancy" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-09-16T04:29:29.000863+00:00", "index_texts": [ "ICE says it has no updated information on the number of miscarriages after 3 October 2025. Lawmakers, advocates and immigration attorneys have raised alarms that pregnant detainees are not receiving basic prenatal care and screeningsICE is arresting a record number of pregnant women and teenagers \u2013 placing them in detention centers where they say it can be exceedingly difficult to access medical care. At the same time, the agency appears to have lost count of how many suffered a miscarriage.Government documents obtained by the Guardian show that the Trump administration placed more pregnant immigrants in detention last fall and winter than at any time over the previous year.ICE recorded 18 miscarriages during the first nine months of the Trump administration, the documents show, but the agency has no data on miscarriages after 3 October 2025.Meanwhile, detained pregnant women report that they are struggling to access routine and emergency medical care. In interviews with the Guardian and in testimonies shared by their attorneys, women who miscarried or were hospitalized for pregnancy complications said they did not receive follow-up care, despite experiencing ongoing pain and symptoms.Anabell, 35, said she didn\u2019t know she was pregnant until she was arrested and told to take a pregnancy test during a medical examination at the Campbell county detention center in Kentucky. A month later, she started bleeding heavily \u2013 soaking through a new menstrual pad every 30 minutes. Chained to a hospital bed at a local ER, she was told she wasn\u2019t pregnant anymore.Laura, 21, was in the second trimester of a high-risk pregnancy when she was sent to the Dilley detention center in Texas. Now, still detained and approaching her third trimester, she\u2019s experiencing persistent abdominal pain and bleeding \u2013 and says she hasn\u2019t been allowed to see an OB-GYN.Angie, 26, learned she was pregnant a few weeks after she was booked into the Mesa Verde detention center in California. A few weeks after that, she woke up to large amounts of brown fluid excreting from her body. The medical staff at the detention center told her the miscarriage wasn\u2019t her fault, she said.Copies of several meal stickers affixed to Anabell\u2019s food throughout March, shared by her lawyer, show that ICE was offering a modified diet. Photograph: National Immigrant Justice CenterAlthough it is difficult to pinpoint the cause of a miscarriage, or to attribute a miscarriage solely to the conditions in detention, it is clear that detained women aren\u2019t getting the medical care they need when they experience miscarriage symptoms, said Deborah Ottenheimer, an obstetrician-gynecologist and medical expert with Physicians for Human Rights.Women who miscarry and don\u2019t receive proper treatment, including an ultrasound and other tests to ensure that their pregnancy tissue has been vacated from their body, could experience infection and other severe complications, Ottenheimer said.\u201cThese incarcerated women are not getting the prenatal visits that they\u2019re supposed to get. They\u2019re not getting high-risk prenatal visits if they need them. And if they do miscarry, the medical care they receive is minimal to none,\u201d Ottenheimer said.Christina Davidson, the chief medical officer of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in July that \u201cplacing and holding pregnant patients in detention poses serious medical and mental health risks for both the pregnant patient and fetus\u201d. Lapses in care at detention facilities, she added, could escalate treatable conditions into life-threatening emergencies.The Guardian filed a Freedom of Information Act request and then filed suit in collaboration with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to obtain data on the number of pregnant people in ICE detention. Eventually, ICE shared records tracking the number of pregnant, postpartum and nursing women who were in detention from October 2024 through mid-January 2026, but only provided data on miscarriages up to 3 October 2025. In internal documents provided to the Guardian, the agency said it did not have miscarriage data for subsequent months because of a change in its medical accounting system.In response to follow up questions about its tracking practices after 3 October 2025, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, first said that the agency was tracking miscarriages in monthly reports. But later, the spokesperson confirmed what was in its internal documents \u2013 it does not have data on miscarriages from October 2025 through June 2026.DHS has never before acknowledged that it had lost count of miscarriages \u2013 not even when US senators asked the agency for the data.It is convenient for the administration that ICE cannot report how many women in its custody had miscarriages, said Faisal Al-Juburi, the co-chief executive of Ra\u00edces, a Texas-based humanitarian aid and immigration services non-profit. \u201cWhen you don\u2019t track something of that magnitude, then you don\u2019t have to be confronted with the reality of what your policies have yielded.\u201dBar charts showing the increase of pregnant people in detention and miscarriages in detention, since January 2026To Anabell \u2013 an asylum seeker from Nicaragua who has birthed three children and miscarried once before \u2013 hardly anything about her last pregnancy had gone as normal.She was wondering why her period hadn\u2019t come yet when she turned up for her mandated ICE check-in appointment on 25 February, she said. The visit went as normal until she was about to leave and an officer told her she couldn\u2019t.The next few hours were a blur. She was taken to the Campbell county detention center in Newport, Kentucky. She underwent a medical examination, and was given one pregnancy test. Then another test. They both came back positive. \u201cIt was a surprise,\u201d she said, speaking from the detention center on the phone. \u201cAll I could do was cry.\u201dShe wasn\u2019t given a blood test to confirm a healthy pregnancy or prenatal vitamins, she said. Nor was she scheduled for an ultrasound. She did receive a special meal, labeled with a sticker that read: \u201cMedical Diet - Pregnancy High Protein w/ PM Snack.\u201d Usually, this meant an extra peanut butter sandwich and a small carton of milk.Over the next weeks, she was often nauseous and could hardly eat or sleep. She\u2019d wake up to the cries and screams of the other detainees, or to the sound of officers yelling.About a month after she was arrested, she began to bleed \u2013 first a little, then a lot. \u201cI told them I need to see a doctor,\u201d she said, but an officer told her she\u2019d have to wait. In an emergency medical request, she wrote, in Spanish: \u201cThis is URGENT, please. I am pregnant and have been bleeding since yesterday \u2026 I am scared for the baby.\u201dFellow detainees noticed she looked unnaturally pale and tried to get her help as well, she said. A day later, she was rushed to the ER. Shackled to a hospital bed and under the watch of three immigration officers, she was told she wasn\u2019t pregnant anymore through a Spanish interpreter on the phone.ICE has repeatedly declined to release Anabell\u2019s medical records to her and her lawyer. She didn\u2019t even know which hospital she had been taken to, so her lawyer hunted down her hospital record by calling nearby medical facilities. The doctor\u2019s notes said her pregnancy hormone levels were low, suggesting that she may have lost her pregnancy even before she started bleeding heavily.Still at Campbell, Anabell has continued to bleed, vomit and lose her hair in chunks. She has lost about 30lbs, and her skin is tender with rashes, she said. In hospital records she shared with the Guardian, the ER doctor wrote that she should return to the hospital if she experiences any new symptoms and that she should receive follow-up care at a women\u2019s health clinic \u2013 but the medics at Campbell haven\u2019t offered any check-ups.\u201cI don\u2019t know what is going to happen to me,\u201d she said.Anabell said she met two other pregnant women in detention \u2013 including another who seemingly miscarried.The data ICE released to the Guardian shows that the agency has been increasingly detaining pregnant people since Donald Trump took office in January 2025. Amid high-profile, militarized immigration raids in Minneapolis, Chicago and other cities last autumn and winter \u2013 ICE held more pregnant individuals in detention than at any time over the previous year, according to the agency\u2019s records. In October, there were at least 87 pregnant women and adolescents in detention and in November, there were 101.Most women of reproductive age who enter immigration detention receive pregnancy tests during an initial medical assessment, but not all of them do. Some detained women have said they were unable to access pregnancy tests, so ICE\u2019s numbers could be an undercount.Records from ICE show that at least 18 women miscarried while in custody from January 2025 through September 2025. This is also very likely an undercount, according to experts on healthcare within the immigration system. Some women who experience miscarriages, especially early in pregnancy, don\u2019t notice significant physical symptoms and therefore don\u2019t seek or receive emergency medical care \u2013 so their pregnancy loss may not be tracked in ICE\u2019s records.There are no updated data on miscarriages after 3 October 2025, ICE noted in internal agency documents, because the agency had ended its contract with the Veterans Affairs Financial Services Center (VA-FSC), which had been handling medical billing for the agency.Acentra Health, a private Virginia-based company, was contracted to replace the VA-FSC starting in October 2025 \u2013 but ICE\u2019s medical claims processing has been delayed for months.Immigration attorneys and former DHS officials told the Guardian it was odd that ICE was only keeping track of miscarriages via its medical billing provider.Chart showing the number of recorded miscarriages at five ICE detention/processing centers.Federal policy, outlined in a 2021 directive, instructs ICE to wholly avoid detaining pregnant, postpartum and nursing immigrants \u201cunless release is prohibited by law or exceptional circumstances exist\u201d. If ICE does detain a pregnant individual, the directive obligates officers to consistently monitor and document their health. Agents or contractors at detention centers are to send monthly updates on these detainees to the executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations. The ICE health service corps, which oversees healthcare in detention, is to continuously evaluate whether it is medically advisable to keep them detained.\u201cIn the very limited circumstances in which detention is necessary and appropriate, ICE must monitor individuals known to be pregnant, postpartum, or nursing detained in ICE custody for general health and wellbeing, including regular custody and medical reevaluation, to ensure appropriate pre- and/or postnatal and other medical and mental health care,\u201d the directive states.A spokesperson for DHS said the agency is still adhering to the directive. \u201cThe 2021 directive is still in place,\u201d said spokesperson Chandler Rebel. \u201cPregnant women receive regular prenatal visits, mental health services, nutritional support, and accommodations aligned with community standards of care.\u201d He did not engage with the Guardian\u2019s questions about reports that women were not receiving essential prenatal, postpartum and miscarriage care.Acentra did not respond directly to questions about whether it was keeping track of miscarriages on behalf of ICE. Instead, it directed the Guardian to a statement clarifying that there were delays in implementing ICE\u2019s new claims processing due to government shutdowns.Court records as well as interviews with US congress members, immigration attorneys and pregnant detainees indicate that the administration has all but abandoned adherence to the directive.The Guardian reviewed case details of eight pregnant women and teens who complained of medical neglect at the Dilley detention center in Texas \u2013 the country\u2019s only ICE facility that holds families as well as single adults. Several of them alleged that language barriers made it difficult to access medical care. One woman who was four months pregnant stopped trusting the medical staff after a nurse shouted at her because she couldn\u2019t speak English, according to Ra\u00edces. A woman who was pregnant with severe anemia and asthma was unable to get prescribed treatment. A woman who was six months pregnant with a high viral load of hepatitis B was unable to access the antiviral medications she needed to lower the risk of transmitting the infection to her baby.A protest against ICE detaining five-year-old Liam Ramos, on 28 January 2026 in Dilley, Texas. Photograph: Joel Angel Juarez/Getty ImagesLaura, the 21-year-old who remains detained at Dilley along with her two-year-old son, said she has a history of miscarriages. Two days before she was detained at a mandated ICE appointment, she had gone to the ER with symptoms of miscarriage and was diagnosed with a high-risk obstetric condition. After arriving at Dilley, a physician at the facility evaluated her and told her her condition requires a specialist. \u201cDespite this clinical determination, facility administration has failed to approve or schedule the consultation for me,\u201d she stated in a legal declaration that Ra\u00edces shared with the Guardian.She and her son should never have been detained in the first place, said Al-Juburi of Ra\u00edces. She was certified for a special visa for the victims of crime after a stray bullet struck her and her son last year.The 2021 directive instructs ICE to avoid detaining pregnant people \u201cexcept in exceptional circumstances\u201d. But in more than a dozen cases reviewed by the Guardian, attorneys said they did not receive any clear explanation from ICE officers or from the DHS as to how they met the criteria of \u201cexceptional circumstances\u201d. Many were asylum-seekers with scheduled immigration hearings, and dutifully attended mandated ICE appointments \u2013 showing that they posed no flight risk.\u201cI have yet to encounter a pregnant or postpartum person who I believe meets the definition of extraordinary circumstances, as it\u2019s used in other areas of the law,\u201d said Sarah Decker, a senior attorney at the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center. Many of her clients are detained at the South Louisiana processing center in Basile, an all-women detention center with the highest number of pregnant detainees in the county, according to ICE data.Decker also raised doubts that ICE was unaware of how many women in its custody had experienced pregnancy complications or miscarried.\u201cMany of the pregnant women that we\u2019ve met at Basile have told us that they disclosed their pregnancy to ICE officers, that they had to advocate for access to prenatal care and access to a gynecologist, that they needed emergency care for complications,\u201d she said. \u201cSo ICE is clearly aware and I think their desire to kind of obfuscate the access that people have to this data is intended to cover up the level of life-threatening medical neglect that\u2019s happening in these facilities.\u201dThe Guardian is not using full names for the pregnant women in this story to protect their privacy and safety.Quick GuideHow the Guardian reported on the conditions of pregnant women in ICE detentionShowOur findings are based on interviews with pregnant people in immigration detention, lawyers and medical professionals, as well as data and documents released to the Guardian through a public records lawsuit with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.The Guardian filed a records request with ICE for data and documents on all pregnant, postpartum and nursing women in immigration detention. In response to our lawsuit, the government released spreadsheets of the number of pregnant and nursing women per facility through January 2026 and the number of miscarriages per facility per month through September 2025. 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