In a statement, officials said the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, doesn’t count stillbirths as in-custody deaths; rather, they’re recorded in their own category, along with miscarriages. An ICE spokesman said stillbirths are very rare, but the announcement drew swift public condemnation from advocates and migrant rights groups.

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“A woman losing her child is yet another horrific example of DHS’s inability to treat migrants with the dignity and respect they deserve,” Erika Andiola, the advocacy chief at Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, said in a statement to The Washington Post. “Pregnant migrant women should not be locked up. Keeping them in jail is a Trump administration policy. It’s inhumane and we can’t let it stand.”

The stillbirth follows the February death of a 45-year-old Mexican national in McAllen, Tex., who died in Border Patrol custody after twice seeking medical attention, and the December deaths of two detained migrant children, which led the CBP chief to commit to conducting health checks on all minors in the agency’s custody.

The stillbirth will probably raise new questions about ICE’s policy of detaining pregnant women, which changed from a “presumption of release for all pregnant detainees” after an executive order from President Trump directed the agency “to enforce the immigration laws of the United States against all removable aliens.”

The new policy, the agency says, is to determine whether to detain pregnant women on a “case-by-case” basis. In this case, the ICE spokesman said, the woman was scheduled for a “humanitarian release" from Port Isabel Detention Center, but she went into labor while being processed. She will now be released from custody sometime Monday.

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“This news is tragic, and it comes on the heels of two recent deaths of children in DHS custody at the border, government reports of deplorable conditions in ICE contract facilities, and a long history of problems with medical services in immigration detention," Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, told The Post. "It’s long past time for a comprehensive investigation into immigration detention conditions, and real accountability for the rampant lapses and abuses in this system.”

From October 2017 through August 2018, ICE detained 1,655 pregnant women, according to the most recent data the agency made available. Over that same period, 18 women may have experienced a miscarriage just before or while in ICE custody.

ICE policy states that its detention facilities provide onsite prenatal care and remote access to specialists for pregnant women who are in custody. In the “FAQs" section of its website, ICE responds to the question, “Isn’t detaining pregnant women a human rights abuse?,” answering: “ICE exercises its civil detention authority consistent with the law, and all detainees receive necessary and appropriate health services, food, and care.”

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Last week, CBP announced that a 45-year-old Mexican migrant died in early February after being apprehended near a port of entry in Roma, Tex. The man, whom authorities did not name, requested medical assistance twice in the two days after agents detained him. He was transferred to a medical center in nearby McAllen, where doctors diagnosed him with cirrhosis of the liver and congestive heart failure. He stayed at the hospital until he died Feb. 18.

“This loss of life is tragic,” CBP spokesman Andrew Meehan said at the time.

In December, 7-year-old Jakelin Caal died of dehydration and shock less than 36 hours after border agents apprehended her. Seventeen days later, 8-year-old Felipe Alonzo-Gomez died on Christmas Eve, prompting CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan to announce that Border Patrol would conduct health checks of all detained children.

In January, NBC News published an investigation of government documents that found at least 22 migrants died in ICE detention centers in the past two years.

After Caal’s death, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who said the immigration system was at a “breaking point,” testified before the House Judiciary Committee.