A pregnant woman with two American-born children—including a breastfeeding infant—is awaiting deportation in a Louisiana immigration detention facility. She has been separated from her family for more than three weeks.
“It’s just getting harder every day not to see my babies,” Cecil Elvir-Quinonez said on a phone call to The 19th from Richwood Correctional Center, a privately run immigration facility in Louisiana. “I’m worried about going back to a country that I don’t have nobody there. All my life is here.”
ICE has drawn scrutiny for detaining pregnant, postpartum and nursing people—a break from previous policy. Lawmakers, immigration rights activists and formerly detained people have also raised concerns about the conditions of detention facilities, saying many are not equipped to house pregnant and postpartum people.
A December report from the Women’s Refugee Commission, an advocacy group, identified several mothers who had been recently deported without their young children, despite their wishes to have their children sent with them if necessary.