Darisbell Quintero hoped for a baby for the last two years. She had a house in the Dallas suburbs, a happy marriage and for the first time in a long time, a real sense of safety.

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When she learned she was expecting about six weeks ago, she couldn’t hug her husband. She couldn’t stand in the baby’s room or begin shopping for cribs. She – no, they – weren’t safe anymore.

The news Quintero waited so long to hear came from a detention officer. She was alone inside a Texas immigration center.

About six weeks later, before she had picked out a name, it was over. She started bleeding Tuesday night and was rushed to the hospital.

She doesn’t know much about what happened. She remembers being in the North Texas hospital room and hearing a doctor tell two detention officers, “she’s not pregnant.”

The next thing she remembers is the weight of those words repeating in her head.

Soon came the reality that she would no longer deliver her firstborn child later this year.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said recently in Spanish during one of multiple interviews with The Dallas Morning News from the detention center. “I feel cheated.”

ICE defended the care she received from the facility’s medical staff.

But Quintero worried from the start how the conditions inside the Prairieland Detention Center might affect her pregnancy. The food was inedible. She rarely slept. She was constantly stressed.

Now, the ramifications of her miscarriage stretch well beyond grief, into broader questions about her future, her home, her freedom.

Soon after the grim pronouncement from the doctor, she heard the metal click of handcuffs locking around her ankle and the hospital bed.

Losing legal protection

Federal agents arrested Quintero, 31, during a routine immigration status check-in March 9. She and her husband had been in the country legally with temporary approval to remain after fleeing Venezuela in 2021, but those protections are part of a protracted legal battle in federal court.

In a statement on April 20, ICE accused Quintero of being in the country illegally. The agency said it is offering $2,600 and a free flight for her and others to self-deport. Quintero said she declined.

While being transferred to three detention centers across the state, two tests confirmed she was pregnant. Those results should have led to her release, according to federal policy in place since 2021.

Sarah Loicano, an ICE spokesperson, did not answer a set of questions from The News, including whether Quintero had a pending deportation order the agency was trying to execute and why Quintero was being kept in detention while pregnant. 

She’s among hundreds of pregnant women who have been caught in the Trump administration’s aggressive mass deportation campaign. She complained about the lack of access to doctors, though ICE said she’s receiving proper care. 

Despite the positive pregnancy tests and the policy that mandates releasing pregnant women from detention unless they’re a public safety risk, Quintero remained at the Prairieland Detention Center about 35 minutes south of Dallas. 

She forced herself to eat the powdered eggs and the canned vegetables. She’d spend about $300 a week at the commissary buying ramen, she said, because it was one of the few foods that filled her. 

“These aren’t conditions for someone who is pregnant,” Quintero said on April 15. “This is inhumane.”

About three weeks later, she noticed streaks of blood on her toilet paper. Hours later, she was in a hospital bed at Texas Health Huguley Hospital in Fort Worth being examined by a doctor who didn’t communicate with her. 

She remembers her blood pressure was high, reading 155/90. She then had what she described as a transvaginal ultrasound, where a doctor inserted a probe inside her. The doctor didn’t say much during the exam, Quintero said. 

It felt like she didn’t exist, she said.

“The normal thing is that they tell you what they’re doing,” she said. “I hated it.” 

While in detention, she would see news stories on television of cases where a woman miscarried while in detention. She worried that it could happen to her. Miscarriages are common and occur in about 10% of pregnancies, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and 80% of miscarriages occur in the first trimester. 

They are also not unheard of for women in ICE detention. ICE from the start of 2025 through mid-February 2026, according to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray’s office, which requested data from the agency. 

The number seems to be on par with past years. In a March 2020 report, the Government Accountability Office found 58 pregnant women had miscarried from the start of 2015 to midway through 2019, averaging to about 15 a year. 

Back at the hospital, Quintero said she wasn’t getting even basic information about what was happening. After the ultrasound, she went to use the bathroom and there was still blood in her urine.

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“I was waiting for them to tell me that everything was OK, but they didn’t even tell me that,” she said. “Just, ‘She’s not pregnant.’” 

No one told her she had miscarried. 

They took her back to Prairieland, but this time handcuffed her wrists and ankles. It was her first time being restrained, Quintero said. A guard told her it was because she was no longer pregnant. 

The rules were different for her now.

‘Administration doesn’t care’

The immigration enforcement surge has targeted people such as Quintero who previously likely would have been safe.

It’s hard to know exactly how many pregnant women have been arrested and deported since Trump’s second term began. ICE reported to Murray, D-Washington, that 363 pregnant, postpartum and nursing women were deported between Jan. 1, 2025 and Feb. 16, 2026. 

“This administration doesn’t care,” said Oscar Mendoza, Quintero’s Dallas-based attorney. “They just want another deportation.”

Mendoza asked a judge to release her in March in the federal North Texas district’s Dallas division and asked the court to reach a quick decision in an emergency motion. The judge denied Mendoza’s request and has given the federal government until June to respond.

The removal of pregnant women also comes as Trump is trying to eliminate birthright citizenship, with administration officials arguing that children born to undocumented migrants shouldn’t automatically receive citizenship. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to rule on that case this summer. 

“Why would they want to have another person born here that they would have to give citizenship to?” asked Mendoza. “They keep her detained and try to pressure her to leave.”

ICE no longer has to inform Congress of how many pregnant or postpartum detainees are in detention after Congress eliminated the reporting mandate from the agency’s budget in 2024. 

Since then, dozens of stories have emerged of pregnant women being held in detention, unable to access proper medical care, a characterization ICE disputes.

“Pregnancy in ICE detention is exceedingly rare — making up 0.18% of all illegal aliens in custody as of Feb. 16, 2026,” the statement said. “Pregnant women receive regular prenatal visits, mental health services, nutritional support, and accommodations aligned with community standards of care.” 

Mendoza has tried communicating with ICE supervisors, hoping to get Quintero released. He’s still waiting for a response. 

In a statement Friday, ICE confirmed Quintero was taken to the hospital Tuesday night after she reported bleeding to facility staff. 

ICE, however, did not address Quintero’s miscarriage or respond to questions about her treatment at the hospital. 

Hospital administration did not immediately respond to calls or an email Friday morning.

Processing the loss 

About 24 hours after returning from the hospital, Quintero saw a psychologist on Thursday afternoon at Prairieland. The psychologist asked her how she was doing and how far along she had been. 

“I heard you had a miscarriage,” the psychologist said through an interpreter on Thursday. 

It was the first time anyone had informed her that her pregnancy had ended in a loss. 

The sorrow rushed to the surface. Tears streamed down her cheeks. 

“I don’t know why I’m in here,” she said Thursday. 

Gilbert Vicent hasn’t seen his wife in two months. They fled Venezuela together to escape political retribution for opposing President Nicolas Maduro’s administration. In January, the Trump administration captured Maduro and flew him to the United States where he faces federal gun and drug charges.  

They settled in the Dallas area and purchased their first house in 2024. But now, his wife was in a detention center, processing the loss of their first child. 

Questions, both big and small, flooded Vicent’s mind: Why his wife was detained? When will she be released? Do they have a future in Dallas? 

“I don’t know if we should’ve come here,” he said.

Smaller questions haunt them, too. For Quintero, one is how will she tell her mom she lost the baby?

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