Pramila Jayapal Steps on Rake With Fake News Story | Political News

According to its masthead, “The Nashville Banner” is a domestically owned, community-supported civic information group that gives non-partisan journalism that empowers the people of Nashville to make knowledgeable choices. In partnership with one other native unbiased journo, the “Nashville Noticias,” it revealed a story in May about Iris Dayana Monterroso-Lemus, a pregnant Guatemalan unlawful immigrant who was arrested by Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) in Tennessee, then despatched to an ICE facility in Louisiana. 

According to the publication, because she didn’t obtain correct prenatal care while incarcerated, Monterroso-Lemus suffered a miscarriage.

On Mother’s Day this yr, Iris Dayana Monterroso-Lemus discovered herself alone in Guatemala, a nation she hadn’t known as home in more than a decade. At 38, the once-vibrant, curly-haired lady appeared withered and shaken. 

After she was arrested by ICE in Lenoir City, she ended up at the Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana, where she skilled the unimaginable. After pleading for medical help for days, she misplaced her mid-term being pregnant.

“I had him inside here for three days, in this Louisiana facility, my baby dead in my stomach, inside my stomach for three days, dead,” she mentioned.

Nashville’s Mayor Freddie O’Connell (no relation, thank God) has proven his disdain for ICE enforcement, encouraging that brokers be doxxed. So, because it’s Tennessee and is riddled with TDS and ICE hatred, the story has gone viral, garnering the eye of legacy media retailers like Rolling Stone and The International Business Times UK. According to a GoFundMe, her boyfriend, Gary Bivens, is raising money for medical help for her as nicely as transportation bills. The account is over $6,000 {dollars} as of this writing.

This all went down at the top of April. Now, over a month later, WA Rep. Jamila Jayapal has chosen to promote the story on her X account to loudly beat her anti-ICE, pro-illegal drum.

A pregnant lady misplaced her child after ICE refused to give her prenatal care.

She begged for help and was denied. She was fed food full of cockroaches. She was pressured to sleep on the ground.

This is totally disgusting and we must always all be outraged. https://t.co/AtYPFMfZ6z

— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) June 24, 2025

“The Nashville Banner” article tied Monterroso-Lemus’s alleged abuse to Trump’s immigration crackdown in Nashville. This is our shocked face.

Monterroso-Lemus’s expertise in detention comes amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants and the mounting claims of abuse and discrimination tied to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests across the nation. In Nashville, ICE and the Tennessee Highway Patrol officers just lately made 588 site visitors stops in predominantly Latino neighborhoods as half of a joint operation that led to the arrests of 196 undocumented residents. Despite claims that ICE was only concentrating on criminals, fewer than half had prior legal information. As the Banner reported, in the in a single day operation between May 3 and 4, THP made more than twice as many site visitors stops as Metro Nashville police did during both days mixed, fueling allegations of racial profiling. 

Questions stay about the identities of those arrested and what circumstances they face once detained. On May 14, ICE Acting Director Todd M. Lyons introduced that 9 detainees have died in custody since Trump took workplace, reigniting issues about the standard of medical care in immigration detention facilities. The deaths have drawn consideration to the remedy of immigrants while in ICE custody, including pregnant ladies, who, under latest Democratic administrations, had been largely shielded from detention.

What Jayapal (and the article’s writer, frankly) appears to need to gloss over are the circumstances surrounding Monterroso-Lemus’ arrest and detainment. According to IBT UK, Monterroso-Lemus had six different kids, two of whom have been in the custody of her mom right here in America. According to their experiences, a warrant was sought because she missed a custody listening to surrounding the case of one (or possibly a number of) of her current kids.

So, legit questions can be:

1) How long has Monterroso-Lemus been in America? According to the article, she hasn’t known as Guatemala home for over a decade–so have her unlawful actions spanned administrations from Obama to Trump to Biden and then to Trump again? 

2) Where are the daddy(s) of all these kids? 

3) Why did Monterroso-Lemus lose custody of one or all of her kids? 

An further query: Is Monterroso-Lemus’ mom a legal immigrant at all?

Inquiring minds and any journalist price their salt ought to need to know these issues.

“The Nashville Banner” article, as nicely as different experiences, element that Monterroso-Lemus and her boyfriend, Gary Bivens, have been collectively just over a yr; therefore, she has no standing as a partner of an American citizen. Monterroso-Lemus was arrested on March 26, and according to the Nashville Banner article, was “transferred several times,” between Illinois, Tennessee, and Alabama, before touchdown in Louisiana in the first week of April. Monterroso-Lemus was given a medical analysis because the article mentions medical information indicating that she was already 4 to 5 weeks pregnant (first trimester).

It is only when she reached the ICE facility in Louisiana that Monterroso-Lemus claims she suffered abuse and didn’t obtain correct care, even though she begged. 

Then, on April 29, she was admitted to Ochsner LSU Health – Monroe Medical Center, a labor and supply hospital. The doctor’s notice states that Monterroso-Lemus complained of experiencing no fetal motion, decrease belly ache and an increase in vaginal discharge for three days before she was hospitalized. 

“She states she told the doctor where she is at that this pregnancy didn’t feel right a couple days ago, but nothing was done,” the report reads.

That day she went through spontaneous vaginal supply after experiencing intrauterine fetal death. The medical notes state that the being pregnant was “complicated by no PNC,” which means she had acquired no prenatal care. She gave beginning under the fixed watch of two federal guards by her bedside, as the medical notes verify.

Not the Bee also supplied this element on Monterroso-Lemus:

She was 37 years previous, which means she had a geriatric being pregnant that is greater risk AND skilled pelvic ache that despatched her to the hospital in February BEFORE she was detained.

Once again, salient info that any curious journalist ought to discover. But, I digress…

As with many of these articles detailing the horrors of ICE abuse under the Trump administration, a lot of this is anecdotal. Bivens and Monterroso-Lemus are the only ones telling this story, without corroboration, and with many questions (like those above) left unanswered. If I have been digging, I’d need to hear what Monterroso-Lemus’ mom has to say. What is evident is that  Monterroso-Lemus’ story suits the leftist and Democrat narrative to a T. Therefore, legacy media and purported “non-partisan” journalism arms like “The Nashville Banner” select to run with it.

Jayapal clearly stepped on a rake. But then, Asst. DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin grabbed that rake and whacked Jayapal one more time with info.  

Absolutely FALSE. She had FULL medical, prenatal care. We have documentation to show it.

Iris Dayana Monterroso-Lemus, 37, is a citizen of Guatemala who has been arrested a number of occasions for little one abuse and is needed on an energetic warrant for murder. https://t.co/5tXf8LUkJY

— Tricia McLaughlin (@TriciaOhio) June 25, 2025

Child abuse AND murder? That’s a lot. A commenter on Jayapal’s post had these salient factors to make.

So, a few factors right here. There have been experiences from 2023 that the ability was not up to code, so why did not the Biden admin, such as Mayorkas or Harris, the Border Czar, get it up to customary? She apparently had 6 children while in America, why did not she apply for citizenship during all…

— Beth Mosher (@CaseyDogMo) June 25, 2025

So, a few factors right here. There have been experiences from 2023 that the ability was not up to code, so why did not the Biden admin, such as Mayorkas or Harris, the Border Czar, get it up to customary? She apparently had 6 children while in America, why did not she apply for citizenship during all those years? There’s a lot more to unpack with your attempt to smear the Trump admin over this, but I’ll close with this-lack of prenatal care would not trigger a stillbirth in just 3 days, that signifies different pre-existing medical issues and/or lack of prenatal care all through her being pregnant. I’m embarrassed to have you ever representing my state, you are a pathetic and you assist everybody but your constituents.

According to the publications operating away with this story, Iris Dayana Monterroso-Lemus has already been deported back to Guatemala. So, can we count on Jayapal and her colleagues to cry that she didn’t obtain due course of and demand that she be returned back to America to be with her kids?

Cue the “Heartbroken Tennessee Mother” headlines.