Democrats demand ICE explain missing miscarriage data for pregnant detainees

ICE recorded 18 miscarriages but has no data after 3 October 2025

More than five dozen House Democrats are demanding that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement disclose how many pregnant immigrants have experienced miscarriages, stillbirths and pregnancy-related hospitalizations in the agency’s custody, after the agency admitted it had lost count.

Representatives Brittany Pettersen, Joyce Beatty and Robin Kelly sent the letter this month to ICE’s acting director, David Venturella. It was cosigned by 64 other representatives. The lawmakers gave the agency until 6 November to respond.

The demand follows a Guardian investigation that found the Trump administration is detaining a record number of pregnant women and teens while lacking records of how many of them suffer miscarriages. Government documents obtained by the Guardian showed ICE placed more pregnant immigrants in detention last fall and winter than at any point over the previous year. The agency recorded 18 miscarriages during the first nine months of the Trump administration, the documents found, and has no data on miscarriages after 3 October 2025.

In their letter, the representatives asked ICE to explain what steps, if any, have been taken to recover the missing data. They also asked the acting director to detail when “ICE leadership first became aware of concerns regarding miscarriage reporting and deficiencies in agency tracking systems”.

Pettersen said in an interview that it was “deeply concerning” that ICE had failed to account for a full year of pregnancy outcomes. “I’m just devastated for the people who have gone through this, who’ve lost pregnancies unnecessarily, who have been left without the medical care that they need after miscarrying,” she said. “It’s hard to imagine how we are ever going to right these wrongs.”

The letter cites a 2021 directive instructing ICE to wholly avoid detaining pregnant, postpartum and nursing immigrants “unless release is prohibited by law or exceptional circumstances exist”, and asks the agency to clarify on what grounds it is detaining pregnant immigrants. The directive also requires ICE to closely monitor and document the health of all pregnant people in its custody and to continuously evaluate whether it is medically advisable to keep them detained.

“ICE’s inability to follow agency directives, provide adequate medical care and maintain accurate records of pregnancy-related medical outcomes is unacceptable,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter.

The Guardian’s reporting found that detained pregnant women were struggling to access routine and emergency medical care. Medical experts told the Guardian that lapses in care, both during pregnancy and during and after miscarriage, could escalate treatable conditions into life-threatening emergencies.

In internal agency documents, ICE said it had no data on miscarriages because the agency changed medical billing providers in October. Its medical claims processing has been delayed for months. Immigration attorneys and former government officials told the Guardian it was odd, but plausible, that ICE was keeping track of miscarriages solely through its medical billing provider.

In response to follow-up questions about the agency’s tracking practices after 3 October 2025, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, first said the agency was tracking miscarriages in monthly reports. The spokesperson later confirmed what the internal documents showed: the agency does not have data on miscarriages between October 2025 and June 2026.

The department did not confirm to the Guardian whether it had received the letter from the House members. “Claims that any pregnant detainees are receiving subprime care are FALSE,” an agency spokesperson said.

Before the Guardian’s reporting, ICE had never acknowledged that it had lost count of miscarriages — not even when US senators asked the agency for the data. The Guardian filed a Freedom of Information Act request and then filed suit, in collaboration with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, to obtain data on the number of pregnant people in ICE detention and the health outcomes for this population.