Stop Shackling and Detaining Pregnant Women Act
HB4664, titled the Stop Shackling and Detaining Pregnant Women Act, would create federal protections for pregnant, lactating, and postpartum noncitizens in Department of Homeland Security custody. The bill establishes a presumption of release for people known to be pregnant, lactating, or postpartum, generally barring their detention while immigration decisions are pending, with narrow exceptions for extraordinary circumstances involving an individualized finding of an immediate and serious risk of physical harm to others that cannot be mitigated through alternatives to detention. It also allows very limited detention for removal purposes when necessary, but only for the shortest possible period and no longer than five days.
The bill also prohibits the use of restraints on pregnant, lactating, and postpartum detained noncitizens, including during labor and delivery, except in rare extraordinary circumstances and only with the least restrictive restraint necessary. It bars certain restraints altogether, such as leg, waist, and 4-point restraints, and requires written justification, retention of records, and public reporting when restraints are used. In addition, it requires access to pregnancy testing, informed consent for medical services, privacy protections during exams and childbirth, access to reproductive and prenatal care, and arrangements with nearby maternity hospitals. DHS employees would have to receive training, detainees would receive notice of rights, and facilities would be subject to quarterly reporting, annual audits, and rulemaking to implement minimum medical standards.
If enacted, the bill would significantly restrict DHS authority to detain pregnant, lactating, and postpartum noncitizens under the Immigration and Nationality Act and would impose new statutory duties on ICE, CBP, and detention-facility operators. It would create enforceable standards for release, restraint use, medical privacy, informed consent, health-care access, emergency transport, staff training, and reporting, while also requiring DHS to issue regulations or policies to implement the law. The bill would affect federal immigration detention practices and could also reach state, local, and private facilities operating under federal contracts or detainers.
The available context suggests the bill is framed as a humane-treatment and civil-rights measure, with broad Democratic sponsorship and no recorded votes or committee debate in the provided materials. The sponsor list indicates strong support among members focused on immigration oversight, reproductive health, and detainee rights. Because the bill was only referred to committee and no vote history is provided, there is no formal recorded opposition in the supplied context, but the structure of the bill suggests it is intended to address perceived abuses in immigration detention of pregnant people.
The main points of contention are likely to be the bill’s limits on immigration detention discretion and its near-ban on detaining pregnant, lactating, and postpartum noncitizens, except in narrow public-safety circumstances. Another likely issue is the prohibition on restraints and the requirement that medical personnel can override restraint use, which may be viewed by critics as constraining detention-facility security operations. The bill’s inclusion of abortion services, postpartum contraception, and broad reproductive-health access may also be controversial, as may the public reporting requirements and the application of the standards to contracted or privately operated facilities.