ICYMI National
Press Release
Reproductive Freedom for All Condemns Trump Administration’s Human Rights Violations Against Detained Pregnant Immigrant Children
For Immediate Release: Monday, March 2, 2026
Contact: [email protected]
Reproductive Freedom for All Condemns Trump Administration’s Human Rights Violations Against Detained Pregnant Immigrant Children
Washington, DC — Yesterday, The Guardian published new reporting on the Trump administration’s transfer of all unaccompanied pregnant immigrant children to a single facility in South Texas specifically to deny them abortion care under the state’s total ban. As The Guardian reports, public health experts and ex-officials have condemned the administration’s actions as human rights violations. The new reporting builds on a joint investigation by the Texas Newsroom and California Newsroom published by Texas Public Radio (TPR) last month, which revealed that the administration has sent more than a dozen pregnant immigrant children to a single facility in San Benito, Texas, that health officials have flagged as medically inadequate.
These types of 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.
Reproductive Freedom for All Executive Director Yvonne Gutierrez released the following statement:
“Moving pregnant migrant children in the middle of the night to deny them abortion is cruel, dangerous, and reckless. Anti-abortion extremists will move mountains and use endless resources to strip lifesaving care. These girls are as young as 13—many of them are sexual assault survivors—and their pregnancies are high-risk by definition. Trump’s anti-abortion and anti-immigrant attacks are part of the same agenda targeting the most vulnerable. These children have endured unimaginable trauma, and now Trump is sending them to a medically inadequate facility and putting their lives in danger to advance their so-called ‘pro-family’ agenda with no regard for the collateral damage this will inflict. We will hold any elected official who supports these actions accountable this November.”
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.”
Jonathan White, a longtime federal health official who ran ORR’s unaccompanied children program for part of President Donald Trump’s first term, criticized this move as part of a broader strategy to target and restrict reproductive rights for minors in federal custody. “This is 100% and exclusively about abortion,” White told TPR.
As The Guardian reported, “The ‘total disregard’ for the rights of pregnant and nursing detainees is a ‘dramatic violation’ of international law and public health practices ensuring consensual medical treatment, said Diana Romero, professor and director of the Center on Immigrant, Refugee and Global Health at the CUNY graduate school of public health.”
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For more than 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.