LOS ANGELES – The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday demanding the release of a 10-year-old undocumented girl who was detained at a hospital by Border Patrol agents last week following a surgery.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in San Antonio after federal immigration authorities failed to meet the ACLU’s deadline to release Rosa Maria Hernandez by 3 p.m. EDT on Tuesday.

The lawsuit alleges the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is holding Rosa Maria Hernandez in violation of her statutory and constitutional rights. The complaint also named US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“It is unconscionable to target a little girl in a children’s hospital,” said Michael Tan, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “Hospitals are considered sensitive locations under Homeland Security’s own policy, and the Border Patrol should not be arresting people there – especially children. The government’s actions are unlawful, cruel, and threaten to keep parents with sick children from seeking care.”

Rick Pauza, a spokesperson for CBP said the agency doesn't comment on pending litigation.




"However, lack of comment should not be construed as agreement or stipulation with any of the allegations," Pauza said. "In DHS’s homeland security mission, our trained law enforcement professionals adhere to the Department’s mission, uphold our laws while continuing to provide our nation with safety and security."



Rosa Maria was being transported from Laredo, Texas, to Corpus Christi last Tuesday via ambulance for gallbladder surgery when she passed through an immigration checkpoint, said her mother, Felipa De La Cruz.



Border Patrol agents allowed Rosa Maria, who has cerebral palsy, to go through the checkpoint with her cousin, a US citizen who was accompanying her, but followed the ambulance to Driscoll Children’s Hospital.

Border Patrol agents stood outside the girl’s hospital room the entire time she was there, De La Cruz said. Rosa Maria has lived in Laredo, on the border with Mexico, since she was three months old.

“It never crossed my mind that they would detain her. I thought the letter we had from a social worker would be enough,” De La Cruz told BuzzFeed News. “I feel so hopeless.”

The checkpoint she crossed is located miles from the border. BuzzFeed News has reported previously that Border Patrol checkpoints make undocumented immigrants feel trapped because they can’t cross them without risking being stopped, arrested, and deported. Some immigrants avoid crucial medical care because of the checkpoints.

The family's Los Angeles-based attorney, Alex Galvez, said that after the hospital released Rosa Maria, she was taken into custody and transferred to a San Antonio shelter for kids for three weeks.


“What this administration wants to do is create fear in the immigrant community. They want them to know that if you’re going go get treatment there’s no safe haven,” Galvez told BuzzFeed News. “There’s no reason immigration should’ve gone to this extreme to detain a 10-year-old at a hospital.”