As the U.S. embarks on a massive expansion of the country’s immigrant detention capacity, a coalition of organizations opposing abortion are calling on President Donald Trump to stop detaining pregnant, postpartum, and nursing immigrant women.
Rehumanize International, which opposes abortion, the death penalty, war, and other forms of “aggressive violence,” spearheaded an open letter to Trump, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting Director Todd Lyons. Dozens of signatories—including representatives of Secular Pro-Life, Live Action, Anglicans for Life, and some state-level affiliates of the National Right to Life Committee—urged the Trump administration to immediately resume enforcing federal policy against holding pregnant and postpartum women in ICE detention.
ICE has started acquiring warehouses across the country in a reported $38 billion effort to expand its detention capacity. Existing federal policy dating to 2021 states ICE should not detain women known to be pregnant, postpartum, or nursing except in “very limited circumstances.” However, ICE appears to be ignoring the policy.
On Tuesday evening, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio) said a woman had been deported along with her sick 2-month-old infant, her 16-month-old toddler, and the children’s father. The family had been held at the ICE family detention center in Dilley, Texas, in Castro’s congressional district. The Dilley facility came under scrutiny when 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father were sent there in late January.
It’s unclear how many pregnant, postpartum, or nursing people are in detention, The 19th reported, as Congress no longer requires ICE to disclose that data. But news outlets have reported ICE detained numerous pregnant women and teens, including more than a dozen pregnant teenagers sent to a single facility in Texas with inadequate medical care.
The American Civil Liberties Union in October documented “miscarriages, denial of prenatal care, and inadequate food and medical attention.” While immigration detention is “known for medical neglect, abusive conditions, and utter disregard” for human dignity, “what we heard from the pregnant women we interviewed are some of the most horrifying stories I’ve heard about detention,” ACLU attorney Eunice Cho said in an October press release.
Citing the ACLU’s work, the open letter from Rehumanize and other signatories stated that “unborn children are dying because of this policy.”
“These outcomes are not anomalies. They are the result of placing pregnant women in systems designed for incarceration, not medical care,” the letter states.
Rehumanize developed the letter after brainstorming how to respond effectively as ICE ramped up operations in Minneapolis, targeting legal immigrants as well as those without legal status or whose status was pending.
The organization advocates for a “consistent life ethic” on several issues and demands “nonviolence towards all human beings, in all times, and in all places.” But executive director Lauren Pope explained that “the area where we have the most influence … on the current administration, is through our anti-abortion, pro-life work.”
“Let’s see if the pro-life movement can come together on this,” she recalled thinking.
Pope worked with leaders at Secular Pro-Life, which opposes abortion on non-religious grounds, to write the open letter. Herb Geraghty, chief communications officer for Secular Pro-Life and a formerly imprisoned activist, said the letter focuses on “an issue that is beyond politics, and it’s beyond faith breakdowns. It’s something that anyone who is concerned about the dignity of women and children should be able to get on board for.”
Geraghty spent about a year and a half in federal prison following his arrest during a 2020 sit-in at an abortion clinic. A year ago, Trump pardoned him and other protesters who had been convicted under the federal Freedom of Access to Clinics Act. Geraghty had tried to reject the pardon for fear it would affect his appeal of conviction. He said his time in prison had a “profound impact.”
“There needs to be serious reform for how we care for the people that are under our duty of care, as taxpayers, as citizens of this country,” Geraghty said. “But in particular when it comes to pregnant women, there is a second party—the unborn child.
“Regardless of how you feel about crime, or immigration … at least this child shouldn’t be subject to these adverse conditions.”
Rehumanize sought signatures from other organizations they had worked with before, as well as any other anti-abortion organizations they had contact information for. As organizations signed on, Geraghty said he was heartened by their ideological diversity—“state Right to Life chapters, Live Action, these organizations that tend to be conservative, right wing, saying we care about this, too.”
Pope noted that releasing pregnant and postpartum women has “very wide support even within the conservative population. People aren’t comfortable with pregnant women being put into ICE detention.”
Rev. Georgette Forney, president of Anglicans for Life and a signatory to the letter, said, “It frankly seemed like a no-brainer.”
Forney, an ordained deacon licensed with the conservative Anglican Church in North America, has helmed Anglicans for Life for 28 years. The parachurch organization opposes abortion, assisted suicide, and euthanasia, among other advocacy issues.
“Protecting women is my beat, helping babies, honoring life,” Forney said. “That’s what we do here.”
Forney said open letters are “pretty common” among organizations that oppose abortion. She added the Trump administration is “much more responsive to these kinds of letters.” While Forney doesn’t expect a direct reply from the administration, she believes “what we’ll probably see is some investigation, looking at it, and they’ll reinstate or reinforce the ’21 guidelines.”
Elizabeth Edmonds of Georgia Life Alliance, a state affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee, also signed on to the letter. She had already been in talks with other organizations about how to respond to ICE mistreatment of pregnant women. She pointed to a report published by The Guardian detailing how pregnant women feared repercussions from ICE if medical professionals cut off their tracking devices in the course of emergency treatment. ICE reportedly has no policy allowing medical professionals to remove the device—only ICE or an authorized agent of the device’s manufacturer can take it off.
“That’s way too far,” Edmonds said. “There’s got to be some sort of way that the officer that’s overseeing that woman’s particular case can be notified, hey, we cut this off because of medical necessity.”
Georgia Life Alliance had lobbied the federal government a few years ago to investigate the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Ga., an immigrant detention facility where detainees reported unwanted hysterectomies and other medical abuses. The federal government closed the facility in 2021, but reportedly reopened it last fall. Edmonds said the organization had also supported a ban on shackling pregnant detainees.
Edmonds added she believes the National Right to Life Committee is “paying attention to any response from the Trump administration” to the issues raised in the open letter.
The national organization hasn’t signed on to the letter, and Texas Right to Life, the NRLC’s Texas affiliate, has not signed on either. Neither organization responded to a Sojourners request for an interview, and it’s unclear whether they were aware of the letter before its release.
Pope, of Rehumanize, said generally that organizations which declined the invitation to sign on did so because they don’t sign coalition letters as a rule, or have policies against political statements of any sort. None who responded had any issue with the language of the letter, she said.
“We, obviously, would like to see much further reform of the ICE detention process, what’s happening right now, but also the pro-life movement is very familiar with trying to make incremental changes where you can,” Pope added. “It is a complicated movement with a lot of moving parts, where you are doing a lot of one step forward, two steps back.
“You get the wins where you can, and I feel like this is an area where we have a good chance of getting a win.”
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