Trump administration separates newborns from some migrant mothers in detention

Pregnant migrants in U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) custody at the Texas border have had their newborns taken from them and put into foster care, Rewire.News investigative reporter Tina Vasquez has found. The newborns, who qualify as U.S. citizens since they were born in the U.S., have been handed over to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS).

The mothers can't be reunited with their infants until they are released from federal custody and have to be able to access legal help. Reporters "learned that women who find their way to advocacy organizations appear to be reuniting with their newborns, but Rewire.News was unable to verify what happens to the children of women who do not have access to legal help."

One OB-GYN who delivers babies of migrants talked to Vasquez using the pseudonym Dr. Shelly. "I don't know if they lose their babies for good," she said. "But I do know the process is torturous for them." She said one woman "cried for 72 hours straight" and was held in the hospital for five days for psychological treatment. "I was worried she was going to hurt herself when they took her back to the detention center," the doctor said. "Luckily in her case, they were eventually able to locate an aunt-in-law, her uncle's wife, who lived in Chicago. But this wasn't a blood relative, and it wasn't someone she'd ever met before." She recounted that a colleague "dashed back and forth between the waiting room and the patient’s room, taking photos of the aunt-in-law and the patient so they would have some idea of what each other looked like," because the migrant was in custody and wasn't allowed visitors.

Hospital workers went to great lengths, Dr. Shelly said, to try to help this woman in the event she was deported without her child. "When the nurses still thought the baby was going into foster care, they tried to help [the patient] memorize the name of the hospital," she said. "They were saying, 'We have your fingerprints, we have your baby's footprints. You have a legal right to your baby.' In case she got deported without her baby, the nurses wanted her to know the hospital where she gave birth and understand that we had the records to prove this was her baby."

The USMS coldly responded to Rewire.News with the comments, "Child placement and care is the responsibility of the prisoner" and "Under no circumstances may the newborn child be returned to the detention facility with the prisoner, except in accordance with the detention facility’s visiting policy, if any." If the mother doesn't have family in the U.S., the baby is seized and put into foster care. "It is the responsibility of the prisoner to notify the court, the [USMS], the hospital, and the attending physician, in writing, of her placement decision as well as the financial responsibility arrangements she has made for her child's care," the USMS said.

from Daily Kos http://bit.ly/2EDv048