Elected officials and civil rights advocates continue their efforts to bring home an 11-year-old U.S. citizen and brain cancer patient who was deported along with her family earlier this year while attempting to travel to Houston for treatment.
According to the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP), the girl as well as her parents and most of her siblings were deported to Mexico after they passed through a border checkpoint in February while on their way to Houston to seek medical care for the girl, who a brain tumor removed last year. The civil rights group has identified the family only by pseudonyms, citing concerns for their safety.
While the girl’s parents had been living in Texas without legal status for more than a decade, five of their six children, including the brain cancer patient, are U.S. citizens, according to the TCRP. Representatives from the organization said that since being deported to Mexico, the girl has not been able to access proper medical care because the family lives in a rural area and because she does not have access to affordable healthcare, due to the fact she is not a Mexican citizen.
Speaking at a news conference Thursday in Washington, U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Houston) said the girl's situation is "heartbreaking."
"Our entire country should be in tears because this is not the way we treat children in this country. This is not the way we treat families in this country," Garcia said. "I want to thank the … family for their courage in coming forward and sharing their story. ... When I traveled there and met with them, I could see how much this family's number one desire is to stay together and to take care of their child."
The TCRP said it submitted humanitarian parole applications to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for the girl’s parents and her older sister, accompanied by letters from several lawmakers. However, according to TCRP, the agency has not yet responded.
USCIS, which is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. InMay, DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) did not directly respond to emailed questions about the status of the family’s request for humanitarian parole.
“The child is a U.S. citizen, and the parents made the choice to take the child and get medical treatment in Mexico,” a DHS spokesperson said in a May statement. “As a U.S. citizen, the child could certainly return to the U.S. if the parents so chose for her to receive treatment in the U.S.”
U.S. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Austin) said at Thursday’s news conference that the family faced an ultimatum when they were detained at the checkpoint in February.
"(The parents) were given an impossible choice: leave your U.S. citizen children behind and potentially be separated from them permanently, or take them with you and risk not getting life-saving medical care for their U.S. citizen child," Casar said. "They chose deportation with their kids."
Garcia said the family had been taking the girl to Houston for medical treatment for more than two years. The congresswoman directly blamed President Donald Trump and his administration's immigration policies for the girl’s deportation.
"The only thing that happened that was different this time was the felon in the White House and his horrific, inhumane, unconscionable, unconstitutional, and un-American procedures," she said. "Remember what he said during the campaign, he was going to deport criminals and the heinous people. There is nothing heinous about a family who's trying to take care of their citizen child.
"All Americans should take notice because if they get away with this, and we do not find a way to get this family paroled ... the next family could be yours," Garcia added.
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