Demand CBP limit the detention of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing parents

Every day, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confines parents, including those who are pregnant, nursing, or have just given birth, and young children in detention — often right after a dangerous and traumatic journey to the U.S. border. Despite their unique medical needs and growing concerns about their access to medical care, these pregnant and postpartum individuals too often remain detained in CBP custody under unsafe conditions. In some cases, mothers have been forced to give birth in CBP detention facilities–known as hieleras for their notoriously freezing temperatures–without medical care. This has led to traumatic experiences, including miscarriages and serious medical harm. No mother should have to give birth in a CBP cell or be returned to a detention bed with a newborn baby after giving birth. All mothers deserve better.

Advocates have repeatedly called on CBP to release pregnant, nursing, and postpartum parents from detention as soon as possible—within 12 hours —to ensure that these parents receive the care they need in the community and are not at risk of giving birth in a detention cell. Instead, CBP detains these parents for days and even weeks in sometimes remote border patrol facilities without access to proper medical care or outside support.

This Mother’s Day, we're sending a letter[see below] to CBP Commissioner Miller to end this practice. Sign here to add your name in solidarity with people detained in CBP custody and demand CBP limit the detention of pregnant, nursing, and postpartum parents.

Dear CBP Commissioner Miller,

I urge U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to protect the health and wellbeing of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing parents, and their children. Even after numerous instances in which pregnant mothers have been subjected to unsafe conditions without access to adequate medical care — and even forced to give birth while in a CBP facility — CBP continues to detain this vulnerable population for days and sometimes weeks at a time when they need community care most. This is unacceptable.

CBP must limit its detention of people who are pregnant, postpartum, and/or nursing, and their families to the minimum time period necessary to process them for release to networks of care in the United States.

I urge immediate, life-saving, and common sense changes in CBP policy to protect people who are pregnant, postpartum, and/or nursing, and their families, including to:

Limit the time that CBP detains people who are pregnant, postpartum, and/or nursing, and their families, to the time period necessary to process them for release. In no case should detention exceed 12 hours from the time of initial apprehension.
Ensure that medically vulnerable individuals who receive care in an offsite hospital are not transferred back to CBP detention with their families upon discharge to ensure their safety and continuity of care.

CBP’s current policies and practices are morally deficient and inhumane. They fail to protect the reproductive health of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing parents in CBP custody, and they are inconsistent with DHS’s recognition that this medically vulnerable population should not be detained except in rare circumstances.

The only way to protect the health and dignity of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing parents, and their children is to limit their detention altogether.

I urge you to exercise moral leadership by protecting the health and dignity of this vulnerable population.

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Sincerely,

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