Cancer-stricken US citizen girl deported along with illegal parents
A Texas family was on their way to an emergency medical checkup when they were stopped at an immigration checkpoint. The parents, who were deported to Mexico, are hoping to find a way to return to the U.S. and provide medical care for their 10-year-old daughter, who is a U.S. citizen and is being treated for brain cancer, writes NBC News.
Photo: Joni Hanebutt | Dreamstime.com
Immigration authorities removed the girl and her four siblings, also U.S. citizens, from Texas on Feb. 4 while deporting their undocumented parents.
The family's ordeal began last month when she rushed from Rio Grande, where she lived, to Houston, where her daughter's doctors work, for an emergency medical checkup. The parents have made the trip five times before and always cleared immigration without incident, according to attorney Danny Woodward of the Texas Civil Rights Project, the group providing legal assistance to the family.
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(This requires clarification. Both cities are in Texas, and the family did not formally cross the southern border of the United States. But in the southern part of Texas, along the border with Mexico, there is a so-called 100-mile control zone, where internal immigration checkpoints are located, which are operated by the US Border Patrol.)
Within 100 miles (160 km) of the border with Mexico, the Border Patrol has the authority to stop and inspect people, even if they are inside the U.S. rather than at the border. There are several such checkpoints in Texas, including one on I-69E between the Rio Grande and Houston. People who do not have documents to legally stay in the U.S. often pass through these checkpoints, risking detention. – Note.)
Typically, the parents showed officers at the checkpoint letters from their doctors and lawyers, and they were allowed through. But in early February, those letters weren’t enough. When the family stopped at the checkpoint, the parents were arrested because they couldn’t produce documents proving they were legally in the U.S. The mother said she tried to explain her daughter’s situation to the officers, but “they weren’t interested.”
While the parents do not have “valid immigration status in the United States,” they “do not have a criminal history,” Woodward said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which detained and deported the family, said in an email, according to their attorney, “Due to privacy concerns, we do not comment on individual cases.”
The 10-year-old girl was diagnosed with brain cancer last year and underwent surgery to remove the tumor.
“The doctors left me with virtually no hope that she would live, but thank God, our daughter is a real miracle,” the mother said.
The girl's brain swelling has not completely disappeared, causing problems with speech and mobility on the right side of her body.
Before the deportation, the family regularly visited doctors and attended rehabilitation sessions. The child took anticonvulsants.
“It’s a very difficult situation,” the mother admitted. “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”
What's happening to this family is a huge tragedy, but it's not an isolated incident, said Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project.
"This is part of the pattern we've seen under the Trump administration," Garza said, noting she has heard of many cases involving families with mixed immigration status.
The Trump administration’s top border commissioner, Tom Homan, said “they could deport entire families together” — regardless of each person’s immigration status. He said it’s up to parents to decide whether to leave the U.S. as a family or to keep their children in the country. But undocumented parents with U.S.-born children risk losing their parental rights if they are detained by immigration authorities. Unless they have a power of attorney or guardianship in place to determine who will care for the children, they are placed in the U.S. foster care system, making it difficult for parents to get them back.
The sick girl's mother said she felt helpless. "You're like between a rock and a hard place," she concluded.
NBC News is not releasing the names of the mother and other family members because they were deported to a region of Mexico known for kidnapping U.S. citizens. In addition to the parents and their 10-year-old sick daughter, four of their children, ages 15, 13, 8 and 6, were in the car when they were detained. Four of the family's children were born in the U.S.
According to the mother, after the arrest, the family was sent to a temporary detention center, where she and her daughters were separated from her husband and sons. Then she realized that she would not be able to take her daughter to the doctors.
"It's terrible. I can't describe how scared we are. It's a painful, extremely difficult experience, I wouldn't wish it on anyone," she lamented, noting that her sick daughter was lying on the cold floor under a bright light.
Hours later, the grieving woman said, they were loaded into a van and dropped off on the Mexican side of a bridge over the Rio Grande. They sought refuge at a nearby shelter, where they stayed for a week. The family later moved into a house, but the mother said they feared for their safety and the children were unable to attend school.
The family's eldest son, a 15-year-old boy, suffers from a heart condition known as long QT syndrome, which causes an irregular heartbeat and can be fatal without proper treatment. He, like his sister, also does not receive the medical care he needs in Mexico. The teenager wears a monitor to track his heart rate.
"The authorities hold my children's lives in their hands," the mother said with tears in her eyes.
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Both parents arrived in the U.S. from Mexico in 2013 and settled in Texas in hopes of a “better life for their family.” They worked various jobs to support their six children, as the couple also has a 17-year-old son who remained in Texas after they were deported.
Just two weeks ago in California, another undocumented mother caring for her 21-year-old U.S. citizen daughter, who is being treated for bone cancer, was detained by immigration authorities but later released on humanitarian grounds.
"We call on the government to allow this family into the country on humanitarian grounds, to repair the harm done and to prevent such incidents from happening again," Garza concluded.
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