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“I realized I was losing my son. It was his life that I was bleeding out. I was staining everything. I spent about eight days just lying down. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t do anything. I started crying and crying and crying.” [1]

These are the words of a young mother, E, from El Salvador who suffered a miscarriage in a detention center in San Luis, Arizona. She had come to the U.S for her son, after finding out she was pregnant, to raise him in a safer environment. Instead, she was neglected, told the detention center was “not a hospital,” and bled profusely till she lost the baby she was carrying. [2].

This is inhumane and unacceptable. Sign now to urge your U.S. Senators to support the Stop Shackling and Detaining Pregnant Women Act!

E and four other women who’ve been in detention while pregnant told of being ignored when they were obviously miscarrying, described their jailers as unwilling or unable to respond to medical emergencies, and recounted an incident of physical abuse from officers who knew they were dealing with a pregnant woman. [3]

In addition to this, E didn’t see a medical professional until more than a month and a half after she first was taken into custody, and nearly two weeks after she had started miscarrying. For another women, it took five days after she started bleeding heavily for her to see an on-site medical professional, who performed physical exams without an ultrasound. Two days later, the medical professional told her she had lost her child.[4]

Urge your U.S. Senators to support the Stop Shackling and Detaining Pregnant Women Act to protect the health and safety of pregnant women in detention by clicking here now!

Last March, despite statements of opposition and letters signed by more than 250 civil and human rights organizations, the Trump Administration publicly announced it had ended the policy of presumed release of pregnant women and youth in immigration detention. [5] This policy was put in place by the Obama Administration to specifically protect pregnant women. Now, ICE makes a “case-by-case custody determination taking any special factors into account” when considering pregnant women and youth. [6] This has meant that between December 2017 and April 2018 ICE has detained more than 500 pregnant women. [7]

According to a Human Rights Watch report, ICE policies unduly deprive women of basic health services, services that are provided are often unconscionably delayed or otherwise seriously substandard. [8] ICE has been receiving reports of substandard medical care in their facilities for years but have failed to take meaningful action. [9] Women in detention are denied medical care, shackled around the stomach and abused. [10] Shackling alone places women who are already at high-risk for pregnancy-related complications in more danger, interferes with safe medical practice and with normal labor and delivery, and puts the health of women and their pregnancies at great risk.[ 11]

Lives are at stake. How many mothers need to lose their pregnancies? Sign our petition urging Congress to support the Stop Shackling and Detaining Pregnant Women Act.

The United States should be a country that values families and the lives of pregnant women. This kind of abuse goes against that value in every possible way. Pregnant women need to have access to appropriate prenatal medical care so they do not miscarry while in ICE custody. Detention centers are no place for a woman to carry out pregnancy and give birth.

Sign now to speak up for the health and dignity of pregnant immigrant women and moms. Tell your U.S. Senators to support the Stop Shackling and Detaining Pregnant Women Act.

We will not sit back and watch as the immigration system leaves pregnant women and their children to suffer and die. We will not sit back and accept torture and cruel treatment of human beings based solely on their immigration status as business as usual. This is not normal.

We must stand up together for the lives of immigrant women and moms!

[1][2][3][4][10] Buzzfeed News, Pregnant Women Say They Miscarried In Immigration Detention And Didn't Get The Care They Needed.

[5][6] The Hill, ICE will detain pregnant women, ending previous policy.

[7] NPR, Pregnant And Detained.

[8] Human Rights Watch, Systemic Indifference.

[9] Human Rights Watch, Detained and Dismissed.

[11] American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists, Health Care for Pregnant and Postpartum Incarcerated Women and Adolescent Females.