ICE’s Harm to Pregnant Immigrants and their Children

October 29, 2025

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues its reign of terror across the U.S. Families are being torn apart; communities are on edge as person after person is abducted in violent, racist raids. The fear of being deported or disappeared into an inhumane detention center has shaped entire new ways of navigating daily life. Pregnant immigrants are no exception.

As Mel Leonor Barclay and Shefali Luthra write, these ICE fears put pregnant immigrants and their babies at significant risk. Leaving the home is a risk that many cannot afford to take, even to seek critical pregnancy-related medical care and support. Unfortunately, it is not just the travel to and from appointments that could result in encountering ICE; hospitals, health clinics, and doctors’ offices are no longer protected from immigration enforcement. As one woman informed Barclay and Luthra: “My biggest fear is going to the hospital.”

This is not an abstract concern but rather a documented threat. Pregnant immigrants have been targeted in hospital maternity wards and on their way home from prenatal visits. Those who are detained by ICE may face mistreatment, like being forced to sleep on the floor, to severe neglect resulting in bleeding, alone, for days.

The draconian nature of ICE’s actions, particularly in the context of pregnant immigrants and their babies, cannot be overstated. We at the Woodhull Freedom Foundation are appalled at ICE’s often unconstitutional and invariably cruel attacks on immigrants’ fundamental human rights, including the rights of pregnant immigrants.