Biden directs ICE to avoid some arrests
Nursing, postpartum also among excluded
No detention for most pregnant or nursing individuals.
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration will avoid the arrest of pregnant, nursing or postpartum undocumented immigrants, the latest move by the president to unwind his predecessor’s hardline immigration policies.
The policy, outlined in a July 1 memo signed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Tae Johnson, says ICE generally won’t detain or arrest “individuals known to be pregnant, postpartum or nursing unless release is prohibited by law or exceptional circumstances exist.”
In the limited circumstances that pregnant immigrants are detained – if an individual “poses an imminent risk of death, violence or physical harm” – officials should monitor and ensure they receive medical attention, mental health services and pre- or postnatal care, the new policy states. The gender neutral language in the memo is intended to acknowledge that transgender men can given birth, according to a senior administration official.
The directive reverses a 2017 policy by former President Donald Trump, who ended the Obama-era practice of only detaining pregnant immigrants under extraordinary circumstances.
The number of arrests of pregnant immigrants soared 80% in 2018, a sharp increase from the number of pregnant women who were detained during the last year of the Obama administration, according to a Government Accountability Report issued last year. The report found that ICE detained pregnant women more than 4,600 times between 2016 and 2018.
The new memo extends exemptions to individuals who gave birth within a year and women who are nursing, which can be longer than a year.
Use of restraints on pregnant individuals in ICE custody is largely prohibited, including during transport, at a detention facility or outside a medical facility, the policy says.
Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney with the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the order a “step in the right direction.”