Families deported to Mexico hope to return to the US and find ways to help their 10-year-old daughter, a US citizen, continue to treat brain cancer.
Immigration authorities excluded the girl and four of her American siblings from Texas on February 4 when they deported their undocumented parents.
The family’s ordeal began last month when they were rushing to Houston, where their daughter’s specialist doctors are based, from Rio Grande, where they lived, for an emergency medical check-up.
Parents have passed immigration checkpoints at least five times in the past, each time, according to Danny Woodward, attorney for the Texas Civil Rights Project, a legal advocacy and litigation agency that represents the family. On previous occasions, parents sent letters from doctors and lawyers to checkpoint officers and passed.
However, in early February, the letters were not sufficient. They were arrested after their parents were unable to show legal immigration documents when they stopped at checkpoint. The mother, who spoke exclusively to NBC News, said she tried to explain her daughter’s situation to the executives, but “they weren’t interested in hearing it.”
The parents “have no criminal history,” Woodward said, except that they have no “effective immigration status in the United States.”
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, which detained and deported their families, said in an email, “will not comment on individual cases for privacy reasons,” the lawyer said.
The 10-year-old was diagnosed with brain cancer last year and underwent surgery to remove the tumor. The doctor “effectively gave me no hope for her life, but I thank God that she is a miracle,” the mother said.
The girl’s brain swelling has not yet completely gone, her mother said. Before the family was taken away from the US, the girl regularly checked in with a doctor who monitored her recovery, attended rehabilitation therapy and took medication to prevent convulsions.
“That’s very difficult,” the mother said. “No one wants to go through this situation.”
“What’s happening to this family is an absolute tragedy, and it’s not isolated alone with them,” said Rochelle Garza, president of the Civil Rights Project in Texas.
“This is part of the real pattern we saw in the Trump administration,” Garza said, adding that he’s heard of several other cases of mixed-status families. But for now, this is the only case of this nature the organization has undertaken.
Trump’s border emperor Tom Homan said “families could be deported together,” regardless of their position. Homan said it’s up to parents to decide whether to leave the US with them or leave their children behind.
However, undocumented parents of our born children face the risk of losing custody of their children if they are picked up by immigration authorities. Without guardian documents that outline the people who care for the remaining children, children will enter the US foster care system, making it difficult for parents to regain custody of their children in the future.
According to the girl’s mother, she recalled feeling that she could “do nothing,” she said in Spanish. “You’re between the rocks and the difficult places.”
NBC News withheld the names of his mother and other family members as he was deported to an area in Mexico known for luring American citizens.
In addition to her parents and her sick daughter, age 10, four other children, age 15, 13, 8 and 6, were also in the car when they were taken into custody. Four of the five children were born in the United States
The mother said the family was taken to a detention centre after their arrest, where the mother and daughter were separated from her husband and son and found that they would not take her to the doctor.
“Fear is scary. I can hardly explain it, but it’s frustrating, very tough and something you don’t want from anyone,” she said, adding that her sick daughter is lying on a cold floor under the incandescent light.
Hours later, the family was placed in a van and dropped onto the Mexican side of the Texas Bridge, his mother said. From there, they sought a week of evacuation at a nearby shelter.
The family then moved home, but the mother said safety concerns kept them in the evening and the children were unable to go to school.
My 10-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son live with a heart disorder known as long QT syndrome, causing irregular heartbeats, and if not treated, it can be life-threatening and does not receive the medical care they need in Mexico. The teen wears a monitor that tracks his heart rate.
“The authorities have my child’s life,” she shed tears.
The parents arrived in the United States from Mexico in 2013 and settled in Texas in hopes of a “better life for the family.” She and her husband did a series of different jobs to support their six children. The couple has a 17-year-old son left in Texas after being deported.
Just two weeks ago, another undocumented California mother, caring for a 21-year-old daughter, US citizen, who was being treated for bone cancer, was taken into custody by immigration authorities and later released under humanitarian parole.
“We want government,” Garza said.
