Lorena Pineda was five months pregnant when she was picked up by masked agents on a street corner near the San Fernando Home Depot in June.
An agent grabbed her from the vending stand she operated with her sister-in-law and put her in a car. “Be careful,” she told him. “I am pregnant.”
“Don’t think I’m going to let you go because of this,” she remembers him saying.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy states that law enforcement officers may not detain, arrest, or detain pregnant, postpartum, and nursing mothers for “administrative violations of immigration laws,” except in “exceptional circumstances,” or if their release is “prohibited by law.”
On October 16, 2025, Lorena Pineda was examined by a doctor at the clinic.
(Carla Gachet/The Times)
But advocates and lawyers argue that under the Trump administration, pregnant women are increasingly being seized, deported and detained.
Pineda, 27, was held at a processing center in downtown Los Angeles, then transferred to San Bernardino, flown to Atlanta and then to a transit facility in Alexandria, Louisiana, before taking a several-hour drive to a rural part of the state — where, for 3 1/2 months, she watched her belly grow and her dreams of living in the United States fade.
The American Civil Liberties Union has documented more than a dozen cases of alleged pregnant women being held at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, and Pineda at the ICE Processing Center in Basel, Louisiana, without adequate medical care.
In one case, a woman was shackled during a miscarriage. Another woman with a high-risk pregnancy was placed in solitary confinement. In other cases, women were denied prenatal care or lacked access to interpreters to speak with medical staff. Some people complained that their requests for medical services were ignored for weeks, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Eunice Cho, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who co-authored an October letter to ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons calling for the release of pregnant detainees.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said it was “extremely rare” for pregnant women to be detained. Those who qualify will receive “regular antenatal care, mental health services, nutritional support and accommodation consistent with community standards of care,” she said.
It’s unclear exactly how many pregnant and postpartum women have been detained because congressional mandates for biannual reporting of the numbers have lapsed under a Republican-led Congress.
Lawyers across the country say their pregnant clients are being held in deplorable conditions. In California, Angie Rodriguez, an asylum seeker held at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield, suffered a miscarriage in July. She has since been released.
Neysis Mairena, six months pregnant with twins, was handcuffed to her bed at a nursing home in Basil when she was admitted with contractions last month, her lawyer Thea Crane said.
Cao said the women were “taken from their families and sent to detention centers thousands of miles away from their families, where they are being held in such horrific conditions – fearing not only the deportation of their families back home, but also the health and safety of their pregnancies.”
McLaughlin noted that Pineda, Rodriguez and Myrena all crossed the southern border in the past five years and were “released into the country under the Biden administration.”
She said health care in detention is probably the “best health care” many immigrants will receive in their lives.
McLaughlin said the ACLU’s findings, which did not name names, amounted to “anonymous, unsubstantiated and unverifiable claims.”
“Pregnant women currently make up 0.133% of all illegal aliens detained,” she said, adding that they were “subject to stricter supervision.”
Pineda showed photos of her unborn baby that she took while in detention.
(Carla Gachet/The Times)
She added, “All four tragic miscarriages occurred at South Louisiana ICE processing centers, which account for 10 percent of pregnant detainees, well below the national average.”
McLaughlin said Rodriguez didn’t even know she was pregnant when she was detained and prepared for rapid deportation.
McLaughlin said Mairena, a Nicaraguan immigrant, was never restrained in a hospital bed and was arrested on suspicion of abusing a teenager.
Myrena was charged with domestic violence and child endangerment because her 7-year-old daughter was present during the altercation with her partner, her attorney Crane said. Crane is pushing back against the accusations, saying Myrena was defending himself.
Merena was released on November 26 after The Times inquired about her case.
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After his arrest, Pineda spent more than three months in a Louisiana converted prison. Under the Trump administration, the state has become an immigration detention center.
She came to know other immigrant women, who lived in a large room with 54 beds and a television that hummed most of their waking hours. The Salvadoran mother of two said that as time passed and she felt her children growing inside her, she fell into a heart-wrenching rhythm, forming connections with strangers who longed for children, family and home.
She counted at least 20 other pregnant women in the facility. Pineda said some of the people she met were released. Others were quickly deported.
She recalled that one of the women miscarried twins when she was about four months pregnant. Days later, the woman cried and begged guards to help her get the medication to expel the fetus — but no help came before Pineda left the facility.
Another pregnant woman she met was set to be deported, but officials detained her and she ended up having a miscarriage. Eight days later, she said, they deported her.
“Imagine that,” Pineda said. “They waited until she lost her child before deporting her.”
Conditions at the facility are difficult. the guard shouted. She said the food inside was mostly junk food. Hot dogs, pasta. The stories she heard made her uneasy.
One woman she met at the facility was arrested as she left the hospital after a caesarean section. Immigration officials eventually deported her without her children, but they were later reunited, she said.
“I’m afraid of something like this,” Pineda said. “You don’t know what’s going to happen.” She fears giving birth in detention.
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The Women’s Refugee Committee, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., has been trying to track the number of pregnant, postpartum and nursing mothers detained by immigration agents and document the conditions they face. Its leaders say they have encountered significant obstacles.
“We really don’t know what’s going on inside the detention centers,” said Zain Lakhani, the council’s director of immigration rights and justice.
After the government ended many legal programs at the facilities, reporting requirements were eliminated and access to facilities was reduced, making it difficult to know what’s really going on. “We used to be able to talk to them and then escalate the complaint, either to the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties or directly within the facility. We can no longer do that.”
She said that since launching the tracker, the organization had “received significant reports of the detention of pregnant, postpartum, breastfeeding women” but would not disclose the data. There is also evidence that ICE is not following policies to provide adequate housing, health care and nutrition.
“These are extremely vulnerable populations that require specialized medical care, specialized nutrition and diet,” Lakhani said. “We know clearly from all the medical guidelines around pregnancy that you need to see your doctor regularly. You have a variety of routine and emergency conditions, as well as urgent health care needs.”
In July, an investigation led by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) into human rights abuses in immigration detention found “14 credible reports of abuse of pregnant women, and 18 credible reports of abuse of children.” These reports included a lack of adequate medical care, timely check-ups, or adequate meals.
“The government’s inhumane treatment of pregnant women is disgraceful,” the Democratic Women’s Caucus wrote to ICE Acting Director Lyons last month, demanding the release of pregnant, postpartum and breastfeeding immigrants who do not pose a security risk.
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Pineda arrived at her immigration appointment on Oct. 16.
(Carla Gachet/The Times)
Pineda immigrated from El Salvador in 2023, part of an unprecedented wave of millions of people arriving at the U.S. border between 2020 and 2025. She said her husband and two young children fled the country along with her mother and brother, hoping to escape gang members who harassed and beat her husband at work. Her father has settled in the United States
They found a “coyote” who was demanding thousands of dollars and her mother’s land as collateral until the debt was paid off. But when they arrived, they found it difficult to make ends meet. They shuttled between homes in the San Fernando Valley, staying with relatives and sometimes strangers.
After a while, her husband got a steady job in the construction industry. Her daughter, now 7, is learning English and enjoys going to school. Her three-year-old son is making friends. Pineda and her sister-in-law opened a food stand where she sold breakfast and pupusas to day laborers near Home Depot.
On June 19, she got up a few hours before dawn, got dressed, and headed to her sister-in-law’s apartment. As the sun rises, they start preparing the food and sell it in the parking lot by 6am. She earns about $200 a week from the stall and uses the money to buy groceries and sundries for her children. She was nervous about going out that morning.
The attack was planned two weeks ago by U.S. Border Patrol Lt. Cmdr. Greg Bovino upended Los Angeles’ immigrant community.
Around 8:30 a.m., agents pulled up in an unmarked car.
Pineda’s mother still has surveillance video of the arrest on her phone. You can barely make out her face.
“I can’t run because I’m pregnant,” she said. “They handcuffed my hands behind my back and put me in a car and took me away.”
She arrived at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center on June 24. Pineda said there were medical personnel on site, but no one was equipped to perform an ultrasound or any of the normal care she was used to. To see a doctor, she took a bus nearly three hours each way to a medical center in Monroe, Louisiana.
Pineda was at home in Van Nuys with 7-year-old Sophia and 3-year-old Axel Serrano.
(Carla Gachet/The Times)
She said she couldn’t call her family for the first month.
She was separated from her daughter and son by 1,500 miles and walls and fences, and she had to get out of there.
“It was really hard for her,” she said of her daughter. “Every time she talks to me, she cries.”
She became friends with a group of seven women. To pass the time, they weave bracelets and rings out of plastic bags and talk about their homeland. She saw women arguing their cases.
More than three months later, prison guards told her she was ready to see a judge.
“I told them I didn’t want to,” she said. “I have signed the papers to self-deport to El Salvador”.
The judge set her departure date for October 3 and told her to arrange a flight to Los Angeles.
Instead of paying rent, her family bought her a ticket. It was September 29, and the guards took her to the airport.
Days later, she met with immigration officials in Los Angeles. Since her pregnancy was nearing term, officials extended her departure date to March.
The day was coming to her.
“My husband said he wouldn’t let me go alone,” she said. So she’s trying to figure out how to pay for four tickets home. and how they will put food on El Salvador’s tables.
Her mother also had a piece of land in the countryside where she planted fruit trees. There are mangoes, guayaba, chocotes and peaches.
and the women she met while in detention.
“Estin Esperandome Stadium“She said. They are waiting for me.
