Immigration Agency Issues Detention Guidelines for Undocumented 
Pregnant, Breast-Feeding Women
[Nov. 20, 2007]

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Friday issued new guidelines 
on the detention of undocumented women who are breast-feeding, allowing 
them to be released until deportation unless they are a threat to 
national security, the New York Times reports. According to the Times, 
the guidelines are in response to a "recurring quandary" for immigration 
officials as the number of U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants 
increases.

The guidelines, which apply mainly to larger raids, instruct immigration 
agents to coordinate with local and federal health agencies to screen 
immigrants who are arrested to determine if they are caring for young 
children or other dependents. Agents also must consider recommendations 
from social workers who interview detained immigrants about whether they 
should be released to their families while awaiting deportation, the 
Times reports.

Some women's health and Hispanic groups criticized a decision last month 
by federal immigration officials in Conneaut, Ohio, to separate Saida 
Umanzor, an undocumented Honduran woman, from the nine-month-old 
daughter she was breast-feeding. Julie Myers, head of ICE, ordered 
Umanzor released and placed under house arrest on Oct. 26, 11 days after 
she was detained. Umanzor's attorney, David Leopold, has asked that 
Umanzor's deportation to Honduras be delayed on humanitarian grounds.

"We are faced with these sorts of situations frequently, where a large 
number of individuals come illegally or overstay and have children in 
the U.S.," Kelly Nantel, a spokesperson for the ICE said, adding, 
"Unfortunately, the parents are putting their children in these 
difficult situations." According to a study conducted by the National 
Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil-rights group, about two-thirds of 
children of undocumented immigrants detained in immigration raids in the 
past two years were born in the U.S. The nonpartisan research group Pew 
Hispanic Center also found that about 3.1 million U.S. children have at 
least one parent who is an undocumented immigrant (Preston, New York 
Times, 11/17).

-- 
Sylvia Ann Ellison, M.A.
[log in to unmask] 
**********************
"Formula feeding is the longest lasting uncontrolled experiment
lacking informed consent in the history of medicine." 
1997 - Frank Oski, MD, retired editor, Journal of Pediatrics 

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