“Arbitrary and Abusing Power”: Pregnant and Lactating Mothers Illegally Detained by ICE Reaches Alarming Rates

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The amount of pregnant and lactating mothers being taken into ICE Detention has skyrocketed over the last year, according to Juana Cortes de Torres,  Director of the Legal Immigrant Rights Project at Rural and Migrant Ministry in South Fallsburg, NY.

However, the numbers are hard to detect given the Trump Administration and the Department of Homeland Security are no longer required to publish reports on the conditions from ICE Detention Centers after the passing of the most recent federal spending bill.

“ Right now there, the access to statistical information from the administration is somewhat muffled.” said Cortes de Torres. “That’s what I would call it.”

Still, investigations from various news sources and advocacy groups point towards a concerning pattern that is splitting up families nationwide. The detainment of pregnant, lactating, and postpartum mothers is also illegal under ICE’s 2021 guidelines.

While medical neglect is common in ICE Detainment Centers, immigration experts say the current treatment of pregnant women is some of the worst they have seen. In a recently published study by the Americans Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), more than a dozen pregnant women in ICE Detention experienced neglectful and abusive conditions, from being given inadequate food, water, and medical care; placement in solitary confinement, and even “shackled and restrained while actively miscarrying.”

While Cortes de Torres does not represent those taken in ICE Detention directly, she has been able to identify at least one lactating mother in Upstate New York who was illegally targeted and was not reported by the Department of Homeland Security. In September 2025, a nine-month pregnant mother was also detained exiting an immigration court hearing in New York City. Since then, even more instances of abuse of pregnant women by ICE agents have been publicly documented through first person videos posted to social media.

Even though Cortes de Torres said that New York state has been responsive in the complaints about racial profiling by ICE, particularly the recent raid at the Nutrition Bar Confectioners factory in Cato, NY, the illegality of the practice still has not prevented it from happening nationwide.

“I think their [ICE’s] actions are arbitrary, and therefore an abuse of power,” Cortes de Torres said. “ The humanity that you would normally see in these scenarios, particularly if we classify these individuals, pregnant, lactating, or postpartum women, one of the most vulnerable groups, aside from children. They’re not being handled in a humanitarian way.”

Image: Immigrant Legal Rights Project Meeting at the Rural and Migrant Ministry (Credit ruralmigrantministry.org)