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ICYMI: Trump Administration Sends Pregnant Migrant Children To Texas to Deny Them Abortion Care
ICYMI: Trump Administration Sends Pregnant Migrant Children To Texas to Deny Them Abortion Care
Texas Public Radio: Trump administration is sending pregnant migrant girls to South Texas shelter flagged as medically inadequate
Yesterday, Texas Public Radio reported that the Trump administration is sending pregnant immigrants young people to a single South Texas detention facility that health officials have flagged as medically inadequate.
This horrific escalation underscores the lengths Trump and his allies will go to suppress access to reproductive health care and put their extreme agenda ahead of the health and safety of pregnant people, including migrant children.
As TPR reported, “ORR sources, along with more than a dozen former government officials, health care professionals, migrant advocates and civil rights attorneys, said they worry the Trump administration is putting children in danger at the San Benito shelter to advance an ideological goal: denying them access to abortion by placing them in a state where it’s virtually banned.”
The Trump administration admits this move is part of a broader strategy to target and restrict reproductive rights for minors in federal custody. Jonathan White, a federal health official from Trump’s first term, told TPR that, “This is 100% and exclusively about abortion.”
Texas has one of the most extreme abortion bans in the country, and well-documented reproductive health care deserts—especially in rural regions like the Rio Grande Valley, where the San Benito detention facility is located. Officials sent these pregnant minors, whose pregnancies are considered medically high risk by definition, here with full knowledge of the region’s limited access to specialized prenatal and emergency reproductive health care services.
According to TPR, “Several maternal health experts described a sobering list of dangers for the girls at the San Benito shelter: If one of them develops an ectopic pregnancy (where the fertilized egg implants outside the uterus), if she miscarries or if her water breaks too early and she gets an infection, the emergency care she needs could be delayed or denied by doctors wary of the abortion ban.”
“But agency sources who spoke with the newsrooms said that as recently as 2024, staff members at the shelter failed to arrange timely medical appointments for pregnant girls or immediately share critical health information with the federal agency and discharged them without arrangements to continue their medical care.”
Immigration detention facilities are notorious for their dangerous medical conditions, mistreatment, and inadequate reproductive health care. Pregnant people in custody report being shackled and denied care during and after miscarriages. Immigration officials have also reportedly ignored patients in pain, bleeding, or pleading for help. Many of the young girls arriving in San Benito have already endured sexual violence and other extreme trauma, and this facility is not designed to give them the support they need.
“‘Some were as young as 13, and at least half of those taken in so far became pregnant as a result of rape…Their pregnancies are considered high risk by definition, particularly for the youngest girls,’” sources told TPR.
By intentionally placing pregnant minors in a region with one of the most extreme abortion bans in the country and the worst health care access in the state, Trump is exacerbating a devastating health care crisis. And in one sweeping move, he’s also dismantling regulatory pathways that ensured access to care. The Biden administration previously implemented safeguards that required minors in federal custody to be transferred to states where abortion care is legally available.
As TPR reported, “’It’s not good to be a pregnant person in Texas, no matter who you are,’ said Annie Leone, a nurse midwife who recently spent five years caring for pregnant and postpartum migrant women and girls at a large family shelter not far from San Benito. ’So, to put pregnant migrant kids in Texas, and then in one of the worst health care regions of Texas, is not good at all.’”
The Trump administration is treating pregnant people and children as expendable, and is sending a clear message that they will continue to prioritize unpopular abortion restrictions over safety and care. Everyone deserves access to quality health care and dignity—not to be at the center of a policy experiment fueled by anti-abortion and anti-immigrant ideology that puts their lives on the line.
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For over 55 years, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America) has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for everybody. Reproductive Freedom for All is powered by its more than 4 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.