Rosa María Hernández, who was brought to US when she was three months old, was stopped at a checkpoint and escorted to hospital by border agents

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy is at risk of deportation after being stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint and accompanied to hospital by officers who waited outside her room as she recovered from surgery.

Rosa María Hernández was born in Mexico but has lived in the US since she was three months old. She was being taken from the Texas border city of Laredo to Corpus Christi for a gallbladder operation, travelling in an ambulance with a relative who is a US citizen.

In the shadow of Trump’s walls, locals remain unimpressed Read more

As they drove through an inland Border Patrol station about 60 miles east of the frontier in the early hours of Tuesday, agents discovered Rosa María’s undocumented status.

The agents allowed them to continue but followed them to the hospital, another 80 miles.

Her mother, who is undocumented and in Laredo, told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times that officers waited outside her daughter’s room while she recuperated from the operation on Tuesday.

Rosa María left hospital in an ambulance on Wednesday, said her attorney, Leticia Gonzalez. Mohammad Abdollahi, an organiser with DreamActivist, an immigrant rights group, said that Border Patrol agents took her to a shelter for child immigrants in San Antonio that has a contract with the federal government.

A spokesman for Henry Cuellar, a Democratic US congressman who represents Laredo and is tracking the case, said that Rosa María would be under the jurisdiction of the US Department of Health and Human Services until a custody determination has been made by an immigration judge. A hearing has not yet been scheduled.

DreamActivist (@DreamAct) 10 year old Maria Rosa is at a hospital & @CustomsBorder is right outside her room waiting to deport her Sign&Share https://t.co/IYVjAkF37w pic.twitter.com/bIkRJzYwSa

It was not immediately clear whether she would be returned to her mother’s care or taken to a government-run shelter for immigrant children.



A Border Patrol spokesman said in a statement: “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.”

It follows another case in May, detailed by NPR, that saw the Border Patrol escort a two-month-old US citizen boy with pyloric stenosis from the Rio Grande Valley to the same hospital for surgery with his undocumented parents, who were tracked wherever they went in the building, detained, fingerprinted and released.

“I understand that CBP [Customs and Border Protection] has a tremendous duty to protect our nation but we should be devoting our resources and focus on bigger threats,” Cuellar said in a statement.

As the Trump administration continues its crackdown on unauthorised immigration, activists have noted a rise in arrests of people without criminal records and in actions that take place in “sensitive” areas federal agents had previously tended to avoid, such as courthouses and medical facilities.

In February, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents returned a Salvadoran woman with a brain tumour from a Texas hospital to a nearby detention centre. She was later released and a court granted a stay of deportation last month.