The Death of a Baby in ICE Custody and the Cruelty That Enabled It
Iris Dayana Monterroso-Lemus was five months pregnant when she was detained by ICE.
She had just learned she and her American fiancé were having a baby boy. They’d chosen his name. They were planning his future. But instead of nursery colors and prenatal visits, Iris was shackled, starved, ignored, and forced to deliver her stillborn son in a detention center cell, while two guards watched and did nothing to help.
This happened in the United States of America.
Iris had lived and worked in Tennessee for years. She was arrested over a missed custody hearing. Despite having no criminal record, she was transferred from state to state before landing at the Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana, where her nightmare intensified.
She told guards she was starving. That she was cramping. That something was wrong. She was told it was “normal.” She was served food infested with cockroaches and made to sleep on a concrete floor. She begged for deportation back to Guatemala just so she could receive medical care. They refused.
When the pain became unbearable, she screamed for help. For days.
No one came.
On April 29, 2025, she delivered her stillborn baby while shackled at the ankles. He had been dead inside her for three days.
Then she was left alone. No phone call. No support. No chance to say goodbye to her fiancé, who only learned what happened from another detainee. Days later, Iris was deported. Alone, grieving, and forever changed.
This is not a tragedy.
It’s not an unfortunate accident.
It is dehumanization by design.
The cruelty isn’t a side effect, it is the policy.
Where are the pro-lifers?
Where are the vigils for this baby?
Where is the outrage for a mother forced to give birth in chains?
If you can’t bring yourself to mourn this child—if you can’t feel the weight of this mother’s trauma—you were never pro-life.
You were pro-control. And this? This is what that control looks like.
Her baby’s name may never make headlines. But his life did matter. And Iris matters too.
We owe them justice.