Donald Trump’s government is detaining pregnant migrants, despite guidelines that prohibit this practice, and subjecting them to mistreatment and lack of access to basic medical care, several human rights organizations denounced Thursday.
Authorities, in turn, are sending underage migrants who are pregnant, many as a result of rape, to shelters in Texas, where abortion is prohibited in most cases, according to activists.
Pregnant women detained by ICE in danger
🇺🇸 | A Minnesota doctor explains how ICE policies are affecting them: “Pregnant women cancel prenatal checkups for fear of ICE, ERs are empty because people don’t dare go, unsafe home births are on the rise, and women are giving birth alone… pic.twitter.com/nC0BktoO33
– News Day World (@NewsDayMundo) January 24, 2026
The allegations come at a time when the current government is holding a record number of migrants in detention, with nearly 70,000 people in these centers in February, according to data from Syracuse University’s TRAC center.
Jesus Gonzalez, a social worker with the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project in Arizona, said in a call with reporters that pregnant women held at the Eloy detention center outside Tucson are not getting the medical care they need.
González also recounted the case of Esther, a migrant from central Africa, who became pregnant after a rape, following a kidnapping while waiting in Mexico for an appointment to seek asylum in the U.S.
On U.S. soil, she was detained by immigration authorities and during that period did not receive “any medical care, except for prenatal vitamins”.
Lupe Rodríguez, executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, said that earlier this year, her organization received a complaint from a detained migrant who, despite having a high-risk pregnancy, did not receive medical care for four months and was forced to “sleep on the floor and go hungry.
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) own guidelines, the government should not “detain or arrest” pregnant, postpartum or nursing mothers, except in exceptional circumstances.
However, between January 2025 and February of this year, authorities detained 498 people in these conditions in migrant detention centers, according to data provided by the Department of Homeland Security to Senator Patty Murray.
Prevent abortions
🆘#ICE continues to detain pregnant immigrants, contrary to federal policy 🆘@rosaicela_ @_VicenteSerrano https://t.co/q3nCr7Zc85
– OᒪIᐯIᗩ – ᒪᗩ 4Tᗩ TᖇᗩᑎᔕᖴOᖇᗰᗩᗪOᖇᗩ 🇵🇸 (@dpietramx) October 20, 2025
Yvonne Rodriguez, director of the organization Reproductive Freedom For All, echoed a report published in the local media The Texas Newsroom, which alleges that the government transferred more than a dozen pregnant migrant minors to a shelter in South Texas, where abortion is prohibited.
Half of the underage girls, the local media reported, became pregnant after sexual abuse.
This practice, explained Brigitte Amiri, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), represents a change from the practices adopted by the previous government, which, in order to comply with a court order, sought to place pregnant minors in shelters where abortion was legal.
“Young women who come to the U.S. seeking safety should be treated with respect and dignity, and the Trump administration should not politicize their health care,” Amiri said in the call.
With information from EFE
