A judge has ordered that a breast-feeding mom be released after three weeks in ICE custody, stating that the Trump administration had violated its Biden-era policy that states nursing mothers will not be detained.
Antonia Aguilar Maldonado, 26, was arrested by federal agents on July 17. She came to the United States from El Salvador as a teenager and has no criminal history and has been seeking asylum in Minnesota.
Hannah Brown, one of her attorneys, told the court Tuesday that her client is experiencing emotional distress while separated from her two children, who are U.S. citizens, including her youngest whom she is breastfeeding.
Maldonado’s toddler is “allergic to other forms of milk, and so unfortunately, this baby has been without his mother’s milk now for 26 days, and she wants to get to him right away and start nursing,” said Maldonado’s other attorney, Gloria Contreras Edin, according to CBS News.
According to the NIH, failure to breastfeed may result in several long-term health risks for mothers and infants. If a mother stops nursing for an extended period, milk production may cease.
Maldonado’s relatives, who have been caring for her toddler and six-year-old son, have been feeding the toddler solid food instead of milk, Contreras Edin told the Daily Beast on Wednesday.
Maldonado lives in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, where she works as a house painter, and has been raising her two children with her husband, who ICE also detained on July 17. Details about his case have not been released.
U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson ordered Maldonado to be released on a $10,000 bond, which Maldonado’s Saint Paul church has helped raise.
“In the court’s view, the irreparable harm to separating a nursing mother and her child is self-evident,” Nelson said, adding that federal agents made a “mistake” when they arrested her, CBS reports.
Church members and Maldonado’s friends supported her during the proceedings and broke into a standing ovation upon Nelson’s decision on Tuesday, Fox 9 reports.
Maldonado is expected to step free at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Maldonado’s case will continue to work its way through immigration court.
It will likely be an uphill battle. Before the case got to Nelson’s circuit court, an immigration judge had already ordered Maldonado’s release, which the DHS appealed, keeping her at Kandiyohi County Jail until Wednesday, according to Fox 9.
Attorneys Brown and Contreras Edin maintain that Maldonado has not broken any rules and that she has an active asylum application. “I’m going to have to work very hard to make sure Ms. Maldonado stays free from detention,” Contreras Edin said.
“It is just amazing what God can do to get her out where it was not a possibility,” Maldonado’s friend Telma Vides told Fox 9.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
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