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Migrant Moms Await Due Dates And Court Dates

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A growing number of expectant mothers are among the migrants pouring in daily from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador — even Haiti — to more than 30 already overflowing shelters in Tijuana, Mexico. Photo credit: Heidi de Marco/KHN

TIJUANA – A growing number of expectant mothers are among the migrants pouring in daily from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador — even Haiti — to more than 30 already overflowing shelters in Tijuana, Mexico.

“More women are arriving pregnant or with babies,” said pastor Gustavo Banda of the Embajadores de Jesús (Ambassadors of Jesus) church, which operates a shelter in Cañón del Alacrán (Scorpion’s Canyon) on the outskirts of Tijuana. “We have a lot of Haitian women and some Central American.”

Some women also get pregnant while they wait.

These pregnant women are stuck here because the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” program requires some U.S.-bound asylum applicants to register at ports of entry and then return to Mexican border cities to wait as their claims are processed.

It’s a period of great anxiety, if only because many want their children born in the United States. The Constitution guarantees that every child born on American soil automatically becomes a U.S. citizen.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly condemned so-called anchor babies, arguing that many migrants use these children to establish a foothold to help them gain legal status.

Last fall, he threatened to issue an executive order that would nullify birthright citizenship. He hasn’t followed through, and constitutional scholars of the 14th Amendment say an executive order cannot override birthright citizenship.

Mexico offers birthright citizenship, but it’s not exactly the same as the American version.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection keeps no record of how many pregnant women have applied for asylum, but Mexican shelters report the number is rising.

As the days, weeks and months pass while these women wait, obtaining prenatal care is difficult. They rely primarily on volunteer medical workers for their checkups, sonograms, ultrasounds and prenatal vitamins. Inconsistent prenatal care leaves them vulnerable to miscarriage and other complications.

Some shelters schedule visits from doctors and nurses, while others coordinate care with local clinics.

But the biggest health challenge these women face is finding a place to deliver their babies in Mexico if they’re still waiting for their asylum cases to be heard.

To give birth in a Mexican hospital, they must sign up for the Seguro Popularhealth insurance program — similar to Medicaid in the U.S. But to qualify for an in-hospital birth, they must have obtained an ultrasound, which has been a difficult requirement for most of these women to meet, said Phil Cañete, clinic coordinator for the nonprofit Refugee Health Alliance.

“Issues like language, transportation and knowledge of local resources create barriers for adequate prenatal care or proper delivery,” Cañete said.

California Healthline’s Heidi de Marco met with two pregnant migrant women who are waiting in limbo in Tijuana shelters.

Grevy Marisela Jimenez Martinez, 28, a migrant from Honduras, has been living in the shelter for the past four months. She is almost five months pregnant and is expecting twins. “I hope they are born in the United States. I want a better future for them,” she says. Photo credit: Heidi de Marco/KHN.
The shelter helped Jimenez Martinez get an ultrasound and prenatal vitamins from a local clinic. She can’t afford any other care. Learning she was pregnant encouraged her to make the month-long trek from Honduras to Mexico because she wanted a better life for her children, she says. “We traveled with a caravan of about 1,300 people. We either walked or rode the train,” she says. If she and her husband are not granted asylum, they plan to stay in Tijuana and raise their children. Photo credit: Heidi de Marco/KHN.
The Camino de Salvación shelter, run by the church Embajadores de Jesús (Ambassadors of Jesus), is located in Cañón del Alacrán (Scorpion’s Canyon), on the outskirts of Tijuana. The shelter, which houses about 75 migrants, started accepting refugees two years ago in response to a sharp increase in the number of Haitian asylum-seekers but has since opened its doors to Central American migrants. Photo credit: Heidi de Marco/KHN.
Daniela Pierre waits as her husband takes their laundry to be washed. Pierre fled Haiti four years ago after the economy collapsed and ended up in Venezuela. But the political turmoil there forced her to keep moving, she says, and she spent four months traveling by bus and foot to the U.S. border. She has been living in the Tijuana shelter for three months while the U.S. government considers her asylum application. Photo credit: Heidi de Marco/KHN.
Pierre watches as her 2-year-old son, Adrian, plays. “When you have kids, you have to look for a better future for them,” she says. Pierre shares one of the tents in the background with her husband and two children. Sleeping on a hard floor with a few blankets is uncomfortable for her. “When you’re an immigrant and you’re not working, it makes it hard to buy things that you need,” she says. She expects to wait at the shelter for at least two more months before she can appear before a U.S. immigration judge. “Our number is 2,716.” Photo credit: Heidi de Marco/KHN.

This KHN story first published on California Healthline, a service of the California Health Care Foundation.

Heidi de Marco

Heidi was previously a freelance journalist and photographer specializing in work abroad, including a series of short-form videos about artisans in Guatemala supported by National Geographic. She was a managing editor for El Pueblo in Los Angeles prior to moving to India for a post-graduate program at the International Center for Journalists.

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