A Democratic senator stepped into make sure a pregnant woman was able to apply for asylum at the border

While Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) was visiting a migrant shelter in Juárez, Mexico, on Saturday, he grew concerned about a Mexican woman who was 38 weeks pregnant and suffering from medical complications, The Washington Post reports.

Accompanied by a physician who expressed concern for the woman, Wyden decided to intervene and get her and her family across the border so she could receive the necessary health care in the United States. But it didn't go smoothly at first. The family was held up by a Customs and Border Protection officer who reportedly told them, "We're full."

It wasn't until Wyden, who had been trailing the family, identified himself that officials at the border allowed the family to make their asylum claim at the port of entry. Wyden said the woman will now receive the proper medical care.

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"I feel very confident that if the family had tried to present alone, they would not have been allowed in," Taylor Levy, an El Paso immigration attorney who took Wyden and his staff to Juárez, said.

A CBP spokesman said that if the family had explained they were Mexican — and, therefore, exempt from "metering," which is used to cap the number of people who are allowed to apply for asylum — and that the woman was pregnant, they would have been allowed in from the start. However, the family reportedly provided Mexican birth certificates and identification. Shaw Drake, the policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union Border Rights Center in El Paso, also said he asked the officer if the family had identified themselves as Mexican. The officer reportedly confirmed they had. Read more at The Washington Post.