Woman Deported and Separated From Newborn She Delivered on Transpacific Flight
Last week we told you the miraculous story about a Taiwanese woman who gave birth on a transpacific flight.
Today, the new mother has been deported from the U.S. and separated from her baby.
According to reports, U.S. immigration authorities have deported the woman, whose surname is Jian. Taiwan Transportation Minister Chen Jian-yu also says that Jian will likely have to pay the cost of diverting the flight to Alaska, which could cost millions of Taiwanese dollars.
Infants are not allowed to fly before they are 14 days old, so the woman’s newborn is now under the care of state authorities in Alaska.
On Oct. 7, Jian boarded a China Airlines flight bound for Los Angeles. However, about 19 hours in, she went into labor, and a doctor delivered the baby onboard.
The flight was diverted to Alaska, where Jian and her baby were immediately met by U.S. authorities. Passenger Amira Rajput told ABC news that a border patrol agent asked to see the woman’s passport. “He told me that this is something foreign women do, to try and deliver overseas for citizenship,” Rajput said. “This is a political issue. People die to come to this country.”
Related: What Happens If You Go Into Labor On A Plane?
Jian delivered her baby girl just as the plane began to touch down in Alaska.(Photo: AP)
On Oct. 17, Lucienne Chen, one of the flight attendants on Jian’s flight, took to Facebook to clear the air about what she thinks really happened. “Don’t give this woman any sympathy,” she wrote.
The impassioned Facebook post went on to say that Jian failed to disclose that she was pregnant when she bought her ticket. At the time, the woman was 36 weeks pregnant, and Taiwanese law prohibits women from flying after 32 weeks without permission of a doctor.
Chen alleges that Jian wore loose-fitting clothes so that cabin crew couldn’t tell how far along she was.
In the Facebook post, Chen also wrote that after Jian’s water broke, crew and other passengers attempted to help her deliver the baby. However, the laboring woman refused to push and kept asking “were [we] close to the United States.”
According to ShanghaiList, Jian was bombarded by media when she landed in Taiwan, and shielded her face as she dodged questions.
She has allegedly told local authorities that her daughter had been granted U.S. citizenship.
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