When Pregnant Women Are Detained By ICE

Imagine having to navigate the uncertainties of pregnancy from inside an immigration detention center, where access to medical care is limited; where you might not speak the language; where your life is upended. 

For decades, US immigration policy acknowledged the particular risks that detention poses to pregnant women. In 2016, under the Obama administration, federal immigration authorities adopted a presumption against detaining pregnant women, except in extraordinary circumstances or where detention was legally required. That protection was rolled back in Donald Trump’s first term, only to be reversed when the Biden administration introduced a stronger directive in 2021, extending explicit protections to postpartum and nursing women.

But as immigration enforcement has intensified during Trump’s second term, advocates say those safeguards are increasingly being disregarded, with pregnant women detained in conditions that put their health at risk.

How many women? The short answer is: It’s difficult to say. But earlier this year, following months of pressure from the Women’s Refugee Commission—a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of displaced women, children and families—along with pressure from a coalition of senators led by Patty Murray and Richard Blumenthal, the Department of Homeland Security disclosed that as of Feb. 16, 2026, 86 pregnant women were in ICE detention and 16 miscarriages had been recorded in women in custody since January 2025. 

One of the women leading that pressure campaign was Zain Lakhani, the director of the Migrant Rights and Justice Project at the Women’s Refugee Commission. “I wanted to understand how diminishing government oversight has made it harder to establish what exactly is happening to women behind detention center walls. The WRC is gathering the evidence needed to push for change,” she explained.