A Salvadoran woman fighting deportation has been removed by immigration officials from a Texas hospital where she was being treated for a brain tumour and returned to a detention centre.

Sara Beltrán Hernández’s family say that her health is deteriorating and she fears dying in the facility. The 26-year-old’s legal team is asking for her release on humanitarian grounds ahead of an appointment with a neurosurgeon on Monday.



A motion asking for bond is set to be filed with a Dallas immigration court on Friday, said Fatma Marouf, director of the Texas A&M University immigrant rights clinic, who is working on the case. Marouf said she is also considering filing a writ of habeas corpus with a federal district court.

“The immigration authorities are planning to take her to an appointment on Monday but we’re worried that her condition is degenerating every day so we’re trying to get her released sooner than Monday,” Marouf said.

She said medical records show Beltrán Hernández has a pituitary macroadenoma, a form of tumour that is typically benign but can cause painful symptoms and usually requires surgery.

According to her lawyers, the mother of two from El Salvador has been held in detention since November 2015, when she requested asylum at the US-Mexico border, saying that she received death threats from gang members in her home town because her partner is a police officer.

She was not released to join up with family in New York, her asylum request was denied, and she is fighting deportation in the appeals process.

Beltrán Hernández was repeatedly denied bond in the past. “I don’t think she’s a flight risk now given her medical condition, at all,” Marouf said. “She’ll probably be in a hospital if she’s released and she’s barely able to move around. She’s being moved in a wheelchair within the facility so I don’t really see why the judge would decide at this point that she’s a flight risk.”

Beltrán Hernández is being held in the privately run Prairieland facility, 40 miles from downtown Dallas, which opened in January.

She is said to have collapsed in a Texas detention facility on 10 February and was taken to a hospital near Fort Worth, where she was admitted and given an MRI. She was taken from the hospital to Prairieland on Wednesday.



“I feel dizzy, with pain. Heavy eyes. Nausea. If I walk fast, I feel dizzy. Noise really bothers me. I have not eaten since yesterday (when I ate a salad) because I have no appetite. Sometimes, I forget things. The tongue is not always responsive,” she told a lawyer on Thursday, adding that she was being given Tylenol for her headache.

Her sister, Raquel, visited the detention centre on Thursday and said in a statement: “My sister Sara’s health is very deteriorated, she is feeling very weak, she is experiencing difficulties to walk and talk. She told me that, from time to time, she feels numbness in her feet and part of her face. She also told me that she is alone in a room, where supposedly her health is being checked.

“However, she told me that nothing has been [medically] checked at all, and that she is only being provided with a pill which is not helping in any way, since it is not for the frequent and strong headache she is experiencing.”

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman told the Associated Press: “After she was determined by her physician to be stable, she was discharged from the hospital and returned to Ice custody. Ms Beltran Hernandez has an appointment with a specialist on Monday who will determine the course for future treatment. Until that time, Ice medical staff is keeping her under observation.”

Advocates for Beltrán Hernández claimed that access to her was restricted. “In the detention centre as an attorney I have not had any issues accessing her. It was in the hospital that she was being kept secret and I was not able to access her,” Marouf said. “Two guards from the facility were in her room and ordered me to leave when I came, saying she’s not allowed any contact with anybody and that I shouldn’t even know she’s there.”

The case comes amid a growing focus on the government’s treatment of immigrants amid the Trump administration’s efforts to step up deportations, which is likely to result in more arrests and a growing number of incarcerations.

Earlier this month, in Texas, a woman was arrested by immigration officials at a courthouse where she was seeking protection from domestic violence.

“In the face of President Trump’s aggressive immigration orders, we will fight to ensure that people with asylum claims are given a fair hearing and humane treatment. People like Sara who are seeking asylum for horrific violence should not be treated like criminals while their cases are processed,” said Eric Ferrero, a spokesman for Amnesty International USA, which is campaigning for her release.