Asylum Seeker Sues ICE for Causing Her Miscarriage
Jan 31, 2020, 12:28pm Lisa Needham
Detentions of pregnant migrants have spiked under Trump.
A Salvadoran asylum-seeker has sued the federal government over the miscarriage she experienced while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody at the Otay-Mesa detention center in California.
Rubia Mabel Morales-Alfaros lawsuit alleges that ICE denied her appropriate nutrition and medical services, ultimately leading to her miscarriage. The suit, filed two weeks ago in a California federal court, names as defendants the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE, and CoreCivic, the private corporation operating the detention center.
The legal complaint paints a grim picture of the days leading up to Morales miscarriage. After voluntarily presenting herself to ICE on December 25, 2017, seeking asylum, she was initially detained in an unheated DHS detention facility for a few days and then was transferred to Otay-Mesa. Shortly after arriving, on January 3, 2018, Morales told guards she was bleeding and in pain, but she was not allowed to see a nurse until the next day. When Morales finally saw the nurse, the nurse told her bleeding and pain were normal in the first trimester and sent Morales back to detention with some Tylenol.
https://rewire.news/article/2020/01/31/asylum-seeker-sues-ice-for-causing-her-miscarriage/