Toppel serves as chief operating officer of Jewish Family Services of San Diego and is the founder of Make Work Work for Moms. She lives in San Diego.
Imagine delivering your baby in a facility so cold that it's called a hierera (“icebox”) in Spanish. If complications occur, you will not be able to receive proper medical care. During the vulnerable postpartum period, women are forced to return to crowded, frigid, and unsanitary spaces with limited access to food, water, and toilets.
You may be separated from your partner and other children for an indefinite period of time, leaving you with no chance for family support during your recovery or happy moments with your family to meet your new baby. After this traumatic experience, they may be sent back to an even more dangerous environment in their home country where they were forced to flee.
Although unthinkable (and frankly unknown) to most people, these horrifying conditions are common to some pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding women in U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody. It's a reality for parents in the middle.
A report released by the U.S. Office of Inspector General as a result of an administrative complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of San Diego and Imperial Counties and Jewish Family Services of San Diego reveals horrific mistreatment of pregnant women detained at the border. I made it. .
Four years later, pregnant women are still being held for unnecessarily long periods in Border Patrol custody, often without access to life-saving medical care, and facing separation from their children.
In honor of Mother's Day, we, Jewish Family Services of San Diego, UCLA School of Law's Immigration Law and Policy Center, American Civil Liberties Union, and American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of San Diego and Imperial Counties, demand that: To do. Customs and Border Protection will immediately address the continuing harm to pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding individuals in the agency's custody. We have repeated this request every year since 2020.
Now, we're asking our entire community to join us and speak up for mothers around the world as we celebrate with our families.
On Mexico's Mother's Day, May 10, the above organizations, along with more than 600 individuals, advocacy groups, and medical professionals, will send a “Mother's Day card” in the form of a petition to Customs and Border Protection. It's planned.
Our call is for immediate action, focusing on mothers and their families. Customs and Border Protection should release pregnant, nursing, and postpartum parents from custody within 12 hours to ensure they receive the care they need and are not at risk of giving birth in an unsafe environment. be. The overwhelming majority of these new parents seeking asylum have loved ones waiting to welcome them across the country.
Community-based care for migrants before being reunited with loved ones is available in all border states, and organizations are active and enthusiastic in providing it. For example, in California, the San Diego Rapid Response Network Migrant Shelter Service, operated by Jewish Family Services, provides access to medical care, food, clothing, a safe place to sleep, and legal resources to vulnerable populations, including pregnant and elderly people. We offer travel arrangements to. Nursing and postpartum immigrants and their families.
We have provided these services to more than 204,000 people over the past five and a half years and have been able to intervene in several cases to provide pregnant or new parents with the care they need .
No one deserves the treatment faced by people in Customs and Border Protection custody, especially vulnerable people who are pregnant or have just given birth. On Mother's Day, many of us celebrate, uplift, and appreciate the presence of mothers in our lives. People in Customs and Border Protection custody should receive similar consideration. They too have the right to basic dignity, kindness and the care they need.
Join me in calling on Customs and Border Protection to end the unjust detention of pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding parents and their children.
