August 19, 2019

As part of the round-up at Koch Foods in Morton, Mississippi a woman was detained and continues to be held, despite caring for a newborn. ICE claims Domingo-Garcia answered "no" when asked if she was still breastfeeding her four-month-old.

Source: CNN

(CNN) Maria Domingo-Garcia left for work 12 days ago, and she hasn't been home.

The mother of three has been separated from her 4-month-old daughter -- who she still breastfeeds -- since being picked up during a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at Koch Foods in Morton, Mississippi.

Domingo-Garcia was among the 680 undocumented immigrants detained August 7 in raids, the most in the agency's history, at seven food processing plants across the central part of the state.

She's being held at a facility in Jena, Louisiana, which is nearly 200 miles from Morton.

When a woman is breastfeeding, her body continues to produce milk that needs to be expressed or it can cause pain and swelling.

In a video posted online by The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi, Domingo-Garcia's husband tried to bottle-feed the crying infant as he explained that he has friends in the area but no family to help care for the children.
...
ICE spokesman Bryan Cox said all detainees receive a medical screening upon intake and many people were released for a variety of reasons. If a woman identified that she was nursing she may have been released because it would be considered a mitigating factor in determining detention, he said.

Cox indicated in a Sunday statement he was unable to discuss the specifics of any person's medical information without a signed privacy waiver, but he did say he was aware of communications between Domingo-Garcia's attorneys and an ICE representative who claimed Domingo-Garcia answered "no" when asked whether she was breastfeeding.

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