COMPLAINT FILED OVER INCIDENT AT BORDER STATION

Woman disputes CBP description of apprehension, birth

A Guatemalan woman who gave birth in a Border Patrol station last month says agents ignored her requests for medical attention, leading to her partially give birth while standing and clutching the side of a trash can, according to a complaint filed on her behalf Wednesday.

The woman’s version of the story, published in the complaint filed with the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General, is quite different from what U.S. Border Patrol agents said happened.

The complaint was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Jewish Family Service.

“Because of those discrepancies and what we know are false statements and details, we are asking for the Office of the Inspector General’s investigation to get at what exactly happened and to take it from there,” said Monika Langarica, an attorney with the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties.

Border Patrol did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

In a statement published three days after the woman’s apprehension, Border Patrol said that “the mother did not appear to be in distress and did not request any medical attention” when she was caught with her husband and two daughters, ages 2 and 12, near the border. The statement says that when they realized the woman was in labor, agents and medical staff “prepared an area for the mother to give birth.”

According to the woman, whom advocates refer to only as Ana, that is not what happened.

Ana and her family were initially put in the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols, widely known as “Remain in Mexico,” which meant that they had to wait in Tijuana for their asylum case.

In January, when she was about seven months pregnant, officers denied the family entry for a scheduled court appointment, saying that they could not take Ana to court because of the stage of her pregnancy, according to the complaint.

The family began receiving threats in Tijuana from the person they had fled in Guatemala, according to the complaint. Fearing for their lives, Ana and her family crossed illegally into the United States on Feb. 16.

On the way, she began to feel pain in her womb, and her husband tried to call 911, the complaint says. When Border Patrol found them, her husband told agents that Ana needed immediate medical attention, but they were taken to the station for processing, the complaint says.

At the station, Ana was told by agents to sit down, but because of her pain, she stood, holding a garbage can for support.

About 30 minutes after she arrived at the station, in a coughing fit, she partially delivered the baby into her pants while standing and holding that trash can, the complaint says.

An agent and medical staff reached for the baby, some without gloves, the complaint says.

Ana and her baby were taken to Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center. Her daughter was treated for influenza.

She was discharged and returned to the Border Patrol

station, where she and her newborn spent the night, without an adequate blanket for the baby, according to the complaint, before the family was released to the Jewish Family Service Migrant Family Shelter.

Besides calling for an investigation, the two San Diego-based nonprofits also recommended that Customs and Border Protection implement a new policy that any pregnant woman be taken to a hospital for evaluation immediately upon entering custody.

The complaint also calls for CBP to avoid returning new mothers and their babies to holding cells after discharge from the hospital.

kate.morrissey@sduniontribune.com