United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 363 pregnant, postpartum, or nursing women between January 1, 2025, and February 16, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in response to a request from US senators. These figures reveal part of the mounting human toll of the administration’s immigration crackdown.
The response said that “(a)s of” February 16, 2026, there were 86 detainees that were identified as pregnant in ICE detention” including 9 in the final trimester, and that 16 miscarriages in detention had been recorded last year by late September 2025. Detaining pregnant or postpartum people means adding significant risk to their health. DHS claims that pregnant women have access to adequate medical care but media stories and reports, including a new one from Physicians for Human Rights and the Women’s Refugee Commission, indicating that pregnant women lack access to medical care continue to pile up.
DHS acknowledges that ICE is not collecting full information about numbers of lactating women in detention. Separating young children or babies from parents, including breastfeeding ones, is heartbreakingly disruptive.
The response said that 498 “pregnant, postpartum and nursing aliens” were marked as “booked out” of ICE custody between January 2025 and February 2026, but that they did not know whether they were deported, released, or perhaps taken to a medical appointment.
DHS said of its own policy that “(g)enerally ICE does not detain, arrest, or take into custody aliens known to be pregnant, postpartum, or nursing for an administrative violation of immigration laws unless release is prohibited by law or for exceptional circumstances.” Rights respecting alternatives allow people to stay home while their immigration case is decided.
Many questions remain and much more information and investigation is needed. The lack of clarity only emphasizes the path to a better solution: ensure that immigration officials fully follow US immigration, constitutional, and international human rights law. Without this, immigrant infants, children, nursing mothers, pregnant people, and family unity are all under threat in the United States.
DHS said of its own policy that “(g)enerally ICE does not detain, arrest, or take into custody aliens known to be pregnant, postpartum, or nursing for an administrative violation of immigration laws unless release is prohibited by law or for exceptional circumstances.”
Rights respecting alternatives allow people to stay home while their immigration case is decided.
Many questions remain and much more information and investigation is needed. The lack of clarity only emphasizes the path to a better solution: ensure that immigration officials fully follow US immigration, constitutional, and international human rights law. Without this, immigrant infants, children, nursing mothers, pregnant people, and family unity are all under threat in the United States.
