U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the weekend deported a woman who’s just shy of being nine months pregnant from the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, U.S. Congressman Joaquin Castro confirmed Monday.
Juana — her last name has been withheld due to privacy concerns — had been imprisoned at Dilley for three months with her two young children, ages 2 and 8. The expecting mother was reportedly fearful of giving birth in the detention center, where there are reports of unsanitary conditions and inadequate medical care.
Indeed, Juana was so close to her due date that medical experts deemed her medical unsafe to fly, Castro said in a social media post. But authorities shipped her out just the same.
“When ICE first attempted to deport her, doctors and airlines REFUSED to clear her for travel because she was too close to her due date,” said the Democratic congressman, whose district includes San Antonio. “But ICE shopped around for a doctor and airline that would be complicit in this cruelty.”
Univision reporter Lidia Terrazas confirmed Julia’s fear of giving birth inside the Dilley camp in her reporting on the incident.
“She’s worried that she’s going to deliver her baby surrounded by guards and ICE agents,” Terrazas said in Friday Instagram post.
On a Friday afternoon press call, Castro told reporters that Dilley officials “were hiding the pregnant women” from him during his visit to the facility earlier that day. However, several of the pregnant detainees had been taken to a medical facility in Laredo for the day.
Castro said he didn’t think it was coincidence that the center’s off-site medical appointments coincided with his visit. The congressman had specifically wanted to speak to Juana, who was due to give birth at any moment.
After activists and influencers sounded the alarm about Juana’s unknown whereabouts over the weekend, Terrazas confirmed that she had been deported.
The Univision reporter followed Juana to her home country of Guatemala. Terrazas’ Instagram stories showed the pregnant woman lounging in a hammock, far from the stresses of the cramped trailer prison.
Castro added in the Monday post that the experience of being pregnant and incarcerated proved so stressful for Juana that her hair is falling out.
“I am gravely concerned that ICE is failing to meet the most basic medical needs of expecting mothers like Juana while imprisoned,” Castro added. “Treating pregnant women and their unborn children with such cruelty is unconscionable.”
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