Guatemalan mom detained by ICE moments after giving birth is reunited with her U.S. citizen newborn

A pregnant Guatemalan woman wandered the Arizona desert alone for two days before she was detained by immigration authorities. She was immediately taken to the hospital, where she gave birth, and federal authorities waited outside her room to detain her.

The woman, identified by her attorney as Erika, gave birth to a six-pound girl on April 30. She named her Emily.

She gave birth “under supervision,” according to a spokesperson with the Department of Homeland Security, and she was swiftly transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, separated from her newborn, drawing outrage from immigrants’ advocacy groups and state and local officials.

However, that public outcry appeared to lead to a quick reversal, ending her seemingly immediate deportation.

After two days in custody, Erika and her baby are now in Tennessee, awaiting a first appearance in front of an immigration judge. She is expected to make her case for asylum after feeling violence and instability in her home country, her attorney Luis Campos told The Independent.

Federal authorities as well as the Tucson Medical Center and local officials were “flooded” with calls, and a protest march outside the hospital demanded her release from ICE custody, Campos said.

“In the end, it was a grassroots effort that turned the tide,” he told The Independent. “I think Tucson served as a good model for what the people can do on the ground level.”

Erika’s case follows Donald Trump’s aggressive anti-immigration agenda and the end of long-standing ICE policy that prohibited enforcement actions in places such as schools and hospitals, opening the possibility for immigrant mothers to be separated from their mixed-status families or swiftly deported with their natural-born citizen children.

Campos was denied entry at the hospital after learning about his client going into labor, he told The Independent. He scrambled to reach her, but messages to federal law enforcement were “just completely ignored,” he said. Erika was denied a Fifth Amendment right to counsel and could not sign paperwork notifying immigration authorities that he was representing her, he said.

“Was she going to be separated from her child? We had posed a lot of important questions that went unheeded,” Campos said.

Erika was initially placed under expedited removal — a process to swiftly remove her, and her U.S.-born child — from the country.

She was then given a “notice to appear,” allowing her to leave ICE custody before she appears in front of an immigration judge, where she is expected to make her case for asylum.

“So there was a complete reversal,” Campos said. “I think that the community had a significant, if not probably more than significant, part in securing that reversal.”

Arizona’s Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs reportedly intervened to support Erika’s release.

“While Gov. Hobbs supports securing the border, she has been clear in her opposition to inhumane immigration enforcement practices,” according to her spokesperson Liliana Soto. “The governor will continue fighting to protect the constitutional rights of every Arizonan and keep our communities safe.”

“This is exactly the kind of circumstance that humanitarian exceptions to the law are meant for,” Pima County Attorney Laura Conover said in a statement.

In a statement on May 3, Customs and Border Patrol said agents apprehended a pregnant Guatemalan woman who “illegally crossed into the United States from Mexico between ports of entry near Tres Bellotas Ranch,” federal land just north of the southern border along the Sonoran Desert and roughly 70 miles from Tucson.

“Under U.S. law, there is no statutory right to an attorney in immigration proceedings until a Notice to Appear has been issued,” the statement said. “At all times, agents followed the law and adhered to CBP procedures. No entitlements were denied."

After she was discharged on May 3, Erika was moved to Phoenix, more than 100 miles away.

There, she received support from the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian aid group, which helped her into a nearby hotel before a friend helped move her to Tennessee.

Erika was “extraordinarily composed” but “clearly exhausted,” Campos said.

Her ordeal follows several high-profile cases involving the rapid removal of young U.S. citizen children with their mothers while the Trump administration is pushing the Supreme Court for permission to unilaterally redefine the 14th Amendment’s provision for birthright citizenship — to which Erika’s newborn is entitled.

Earlier this month, despite attempts from lawyers and family members to intervene, immigration authorities deported a two-year-old U.S. citizen alongside their pregnant mother without any “meaningful process,” according to a federal judge. At least two other children, ages four and seven, were also recently removed from the country with their mother. One of those children is diagnosed with cancer and is now separated from treatment in the United States.

In his executive order signed on his first day in office, Trump is seeking to deny citizenship to children born in the United States if their parents are “unlawfully” present or have “lawful but temporary” status in the country.

Several federal judges have paused the order nationwide, and the administration is calling on the Supreme Court to limit the scope of those rulings to apply only to the states that sued and won. The justices are scheduled to hear oral arguments May 15.