On February 16 last year, a heavily pregnant woman gave birth 17 minutes after she arrived at the detention camp on the US-Mexico border.
She and her family were arrested when they tried to enter the United States illegally from Mexico, but on their way across the border, the woman got clear signs of contractions.
According to Insider gave birth to the heavily pregnant woman without help, had to lean on a rubbish bin and did not manage to take off his trousers.
In a complaint filed by two human rights organizations to the Department of Homeland Security, it says that her husband must have said that she needed immediate medical help already when they were arrested. They were nevertheless transported directly to the internment camp where she then gave birth.
It was NRK who first mentioned the case.
Mother and child had to sleep in a cell without a proper bed
After the birth, the woman and the newborn baby were sent to hospital, but when they were discharged two days later, they both ended up back in custody at the border control, and had to spend the night in a locked cell without a bed.
Surveillance cameras show that the woman and the newborn baby instead slept on a bench.
Foto: Department of Homeland Security
—-
According to the complaint to Homeland Security, the woman received the papers she needed to be transported to a family center in the early afternoon the next day. Here she finally got a shower, it says in the complaint. It had been three days since the birth.
Do not count how many children are born at the border
Following the incident, the US Department of the Interior launched an investigation. Recently became one report from the investigation published where they concluded that the border patrol provided adequate medical assistance to both the mother and her newborn child, and that the way the staff dealt with the case was in accordance with the guidelines.
The Ministry of the Interior also concluded that in some cases it was impossible to prevent the birth from taking place in the custody of the border controls. However, the investigation revealed that the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) could not release figures on how many are born in their custody.
The Department of the Interior’s review of births in U.S. detention camps also showed that the border patrol occasionally held newborn infants in custody for several days. They conclude that this is problematic, both in terms of health and law.
They describe the facilities of the border controls as unsafe for newborns. In addition, all children born in the United States, including those born in internment camps, become American citizens.
– Immigration policy in limbo
Criticism of how the United States treats migrants at the border has continued since Joe Biden took over as president in January.
Biden, on the other hand, has promised the American people to return to the immigration policy the country had before Donald Trump took over as president, says senior researcher at the Norce Research Institute, Hilmar Mjelde.
– But Biden has been overwhelmed by the refugee crisis on the Mexican border. So his immigration policy is a bit in limbo now. He is trying to change it, at the same time as he is trying to stagnate immigration from Central America, he says to NRK.
– .
