The 10-Year-Old Hospital Patient That Federal Agents Want to Deport to Mexico
Rosa Maria Hernandez has lived in the United States since she was three months old and might be deported despite having cerebral palsy and needing to undergo and emergency surgery.
The media has been ablaze with the story of Rosa Maria Hernandez, the 10-year-old undocumented immigrant with cerebral palsy who was detained by Border Patrol as she traveled to a children’s hospital in Texas for an emergency gall bladder surgery.
As reported by The New York Times:
The girl, Rosamaria Hernandez, who was brought over the border illegally to live in Laredo, Tex., when she was three months old, was being transferred from a medical center in Laredo to a hospital in Corpus Christi around 2 a.m. on Tuesday when Border Patrol agents stopped the ambulance she was riding in, her family said. The agents allowed her to continue to Driscoll Children’s Hospital, the family said, but followed the ambulance the rest of the way there, then waited outside her room until she was released from the hospital.
By Wednesday evening, according to family members and advocates involved in her case, immigration agents had taken her to a facility in San Antonio where migrant children who arrive alone in the United States from Central America are usually held, even though her parents, who both lack legal status, live 150 miles away in Laredo.
Cases like Rosa Maria’s continue to spring up as Texas seeks to transform itself into the most anti-immigrant state in the Union under its draconian state laws and Republican extremist Governor, Greg Abbott.
It was just last month, where the case of an infant needing medical attention in Texas led to the arrest of his undocumented parents in Texas. As reported by America’s Voice:
ICE and CBP officials aren’t supposed to target “sensitive” locations like churches, schools, and hospitals — but arrests of immigrants have happened at all three. Last month, Border Patrol arrested an undocumented mother and father after they took their 2-month-old baby to the hospital for an operation on his stomach. In that case as well as this one, CBP is telling immigrants that they may have to choose between seeking life-saving care — or being deported.
Right now Rosa continues to face deportation, even as activists collect signatures to raise awareness for her case and raise funds to help the family cover medical expenses.
A statement from a Border Patrol spokes woman confirms that the government tends to deport Rosa Maria once she has recovered:
The Laredo Sector Border Patrol is committed to enforcing the immigration laws of this nation. Travelers that present themselves for immigration inspections at our checkpoints are inspected thoroughly and expeditiously …
Due to the juvenile’s medical condition, Border Patrol agents escorted her and her cousin to a Corpus Christi hospital where she could receive appropriate medical care. Per the immigration laws of the United States, once medically cleared she will be processed accordingly.
If you think that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are heartless, then you’d be completely right. Just look at the stunt the tried to pull as Rosa Maria was on her way to the hospital:
