ICE arrested a nursing mom. A Trump-appointed judge ordered her release three months later

The mother of a six-month-old baby must be released from immigration detention after Donald Trump’s administration declined to mount a defense for keeping her there while she was still nursing, according to a federal judge.Karina Alvarez San Juan’s youngest child was three months old when she was arrested during a traffic stop in Florida for an allegedly broken taillight in May, according to her attorney. Immigration and Customs Enforcement then moved her to a detention center in Louisiana, where she has been locked up for more than three months.

San Juan, who is originally from Mexico, has three other young children, all of whom are U.S. citizens.

“It’s terrible. She cries when I talk to her,” her attorney Michelle Borton told The Independent. “She doesn't know anybody [in Mexico].

She doesn’t even have family there.”On Tuesday night, a Trump-appointed federal judge determined that immigration authorities violated their own policy against detaining immigrants who are pregnant, postpartum or nursing. The decision follows growing concerns among civil rights groups and immigration attorneys over the treatment of pregnant detainees and new mothers in custody as federal agents increasingly target immigrants with families who have lived in the country for years.

ICE pushed to keep immigrants in custody without a chance for a bond hearing as the Trump administration attempts to swiftly detain and deport tens of thousands of people, which civil rights groups and immigration lawyers have called stark violations of due process rights. open image in galleryA federal judge has ordered the release of Karina Alvarez San Juan from ICE custody after the mother of four US citizen children was arrested in May (Courtesy of Michelle Borton)Louisiana District Judge David Joseph, who was appointed to the bench by Trump in 2020, ordered ICE to explain why San Juan was being kept in detention despite the agency’s own policy against detaining new mothers.Instead, officials said “they had no additional evidence” to present to the court, Joseph wrote.

Officials “failed to demonstrate their compliance” with ICE policy as well as the court’s order to show why San Juan must stay in detention, Joseph wrote.She must be released within five days of the court’s order. The case was first reported by Politico.

San Juan has lived in the U.S. since she was 12 years old, Borton told The Independent.

After her arrest in the traffic stop, Borton warned ICE officials at the time that her client was still nursing her then-three-month-old baby as she pressed for her release. San Juan entered ICE custody on May 6 and was transferred to ICE’s South Louisiana Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana, three days later, according to court filings. open image in galleryImmigration advocates and federal judges have repeatedly accused ICE of violating the agency’s policy against detaining pregnant women and new mothers (AFP/Getty)“What are the odds that I filed a motion for bond redetermination, where it says that she has a baby, that this is an emergency, and they sent her to Louisiana,” Borton told The Independent.

Officials did not tell Borton that her client was moved to the Louisiana detention center, where San Juan has been locked up since May, according to Borton. Conditions there “are terrible,” she said. Detainees don’t have sufficient clear water to bathe, brush their teeth or flush the toilet, Borton said.

Her family is now coordinating how to get her safely out of Louisiana and back home to Florida while her legal challenge plays out, Borton said.ICE can try to detain her again if immigration court judges determine she is removable, “but I don’t see that they’re going to be able to say that they follow the protocol” for holding nursing mothers in custody, Borton told The Independent.“These people are playing very dirty,” she said.

open image in galleryICE’s alleged failures have left children left behind without warning and denied postpartum women adequate medical care, according to advocates (Getty)ICE policy states that agents “should not detain, arrest, or take into custody for an administrative violation of the immigration laws individuals known to be pregnant, postpartum, or nursing unless release is prohibited by law or exceptional circumstances exist.”Officers are also required to rely on “credible information” to determine whether someone in custody is pregnant, postpartum or nursing and notify their superiors “generally within two hours” when those women are arrested.ICE has repeatedly failed to follow its own policies requiring officers to ask people they arrest about their children to ensure they have an opportunity to decide what happens to them if they’re deported, according to a recent report from the Women’s Refugee Commission and Physicians for Human Rights.

The human cost of those alleged policy failures has left children left behind without warning, while pregnant women and postpartum mothers are reportedly denied adequate medical care.The