The recent ICE raids across the US—especially in Minnesota—are weighing so heavy on all of us. The lack of humanity, seeing basic human rights violated, is sickening. The sadness and anxiety build as we watch the Constitution trampled without consequence or remorse. Parents having to choose between safety and survival, children used as bait and detained in school parking lots—we cannot accept this as normal. Parents across the US are suffering right now.
In Minneapolis, a father stands outside his son’s elementary school with a walkie-talkie, scanning for suspicious cars. Every morning, he is forced to choose: patrol his daughter’s preschool or protect his son’s kindergarten. He can’t do both. This is what it means to parent in America—making impossible calculations about who to protect and how to survive. [NBC]
The Toll on Mothers
While fear grips entire communities, pregnant women face a devastating double burden. OB-GYNs are delivering babies for mothers who received zero prenatal care out of fear of endangering themselves or their families. Several mothers have given birth to babies with fatal fetal anomalies that were never diagnosed because they were too afraid to leave their homes for prenatal ultrasounds.
One mother in North Florida planned to call 911 for an ambulance when she went into labor—her husband had been deported months earlier, and she was too afraid to leave her house for prenatal appointments. Doctors report pregnant patients missing appointments, not following up with specialists for high-risk pregnancies, and delaying hospital care even when experiencing complications. Some continue their appointments while living with crushing anxiety thinking of the day they’ll have to go to the hospital to give birth. [The 19th]
The chronic stress of living in fear causes preterm births, hypertension complications, and postpartum depression. This is maternal weathering in real time and what 4th Trimester is working to reduce. When mothers avoid care, the consequences compound: missed diagnoses, preventable complications, devastating losses that could have been avoided.
How We Show Up Right Now
Fear is isolating families at the exact moment they need community most. Across Minneapolis, residents are paying rent for families whose breadwinners are afraid to work, delivering home-cooked meals, arranging emergency custody plans, and organizing regular check-ins. Here’s how you too, can show up in your community:
Offer practical support without requiring anyone to leave home: Deliver groceries, provide rides to medical appointments, drop off prepared meals or essential supplies. If someone in your community has had a partner detained, they’re managing everything alone—childcare, bills, basic survival—while pregnant, postpartum, or caring for young children.
Connect families to care that doesn’t require documentation: Community health clinics, WIC programs, and many state programs provide services regardless of immigration status. Share this information quietly, person-to-person. Many families don’t know these resources exist or are too afraid to ask. Help with technology barriers or questions.
Create safe accompaniment: Organize trusted friends to accompany pregnant women to medical appointments or parents to essential errands so they’re never alone. Walk children to school. Take out the trash for families hiding in apartments. Sometimes showing up means doing the mundane things that have become impossible.
Organize emergency care plans: Help families create backup plans for childcare in case parents are detained. Connect them with legal resources. Make sure they’re not navigating this alone.
The joy our children bring us, the fierce love we feel as parents—these are the most beautiful parts of being human. Every mother deserves to experience pregnancy and postpartum with compassion, connection, care, and confidence. Not terror. Not isolation. Not impossible choices between safety and survival.
