WASHINGTON -- A federal judge on Monday ordered President Donald Trump's administration to allow two pregnant teenagers in U.S. immigration custody to obtain abortions.
The requests from the 17-year-olds are the latest challenges to the government's new policy of discouraging, and even blocking, illegal alien teens in custody from terminating pregnancies.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said in an order Monday that the administration can't prevent the 17-year-old girls from exercising their right to an abortion. Both girls arrived in the country as unaccompanied minors and are being held in federal shelters, though it is not known precisely where.
One teen is about 10 weeks pregnant, and the other is now about 22 weeks pregnant, Chutkan said. She "is quickly approaching the limit for abortion in the state where she is being detained," the American Civil Liberties Union argued in its lawsuit.
[U.S. immigration: Data visualization of selected immigration statistics, U.S. border map]
Lawyers for the government had made clear at a court hearing earlier Monday that the administration would not allow the teen who was about 22 weeks pregnant to have an abortion, Chutkan said in her ruling.
The judge gave the administration 24 hours to try to persuade a higher court to block her order.
As it applies to the teenager who is 10 weeks pregnant, the administration appealed the judge's ruling to both the federal appeals court in Washington and to the Supreme Court. But it is not seeking to stop the teenager who is about 22 weeks pregnant from having an abortion.
Late Monday, the appeals court ruled that the girl who is 10 weeks pregnant must wait at least another day, to give the court more time to consider the case.
Filings in advance of the hearing Monday are part of a broader case initially brought by a Central American girl who was able to terminate her pregnancy in October after a legal battle that is pending in the Supreme Court.
Since March, the Trump administration has refused to "facilitate" abortions for unaccompanied minors taken into federal custody after crossing the border illegally.
Lawyers from the ACLU who are representing the two teens say the new policy is an unconstitutional ban on abortion because it strips them of their right to make an independent decision about becoming a parent.
"We've already stopped the Trump administration from blocking one young woman's abortion," Brigitte Amiri, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU, said in a statement. "It's unreal that the federal government is trying to force more young women to continue their pregnancies against their will."
In court filings, the government says the Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for caring for detained unaccompanied minors, has "constitutionally legitimate" interests " in not providing incentives for pregnant minors to illegally cross the border to obtain elective abortions while in federal custody."
Information for this article was contributed by Ann E. Marimow of The Washington Post; and by Mark Sherman and staff members of The Associated Press.
A Section on 12/19/2017