I remember when Republicans were proud that America was a destination for having children.

Ms. Acosta and the baby’s father, Jaime Murillo Padilla, made decisions that put themselves and their future child at risk — desperate for their son to achieve citizenship in a stable country rich with economic promise. They also encountered an immigration system ill equipped to deal with the consequences of a practice that creates strong incentives for noncitizens to have children in the United States, with detention policies and conditions that can put mothers and their babies in jeopardy.

Of all the potential perils they had contemplated, the couple never imagined they would be separated from their newborn. Gael was in the hospital without a family member for more than 24 hours before his grandmother, a U.S. resident, came to collect him.

“I felt so much pain that I didn’t really know where it hurt,” Ms. Acosta said in an interview. “I wanted to vomit. I felt like my world was falling to pieces.”

U.S. Border Patrol does not track childbirths. Lauren Bis, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said that Border Patrol encountered over 15,000 pregnant women in 2023 under President Biden. She added that the number of pregnant women crossing the border dropped by 81 percent after President Trump took office.


https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/17/us/politics/ice-cbp-birth-pregnancy-detention.html