10-Year-Old Girl Is Detained By Border Patrol After Emergency Surgery

Immigrant advocates are protesting the Border Patrol's apprehension this week of a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who is in the country illegally after she was operated on at a Texas hospital.

Federal immigration officers intercepted the child as she and a cousin, who is a U.S. citizen, were in an ambulance being transferred between two hospitals so that she could receive emergency gall bladder surgery.



Rosamaria Hernandez was brought to the United States illegally from Mexico when she was 3 months old, according to her family and immigrant advocates involved in her case. She was traveling in an ambulance to Driscoll Children's Hospital in Corpus Christi when federal immigration officers stopped the vehicle at a checkpoint.

The Border Patrol agents followed the ambulance to the hospital. When the hospital discharged the child, Border Patrol agents took the 10-year-old into custody instead of allowing her cousin to take her back to her parents, who are also in the country illegally, in Laredo.

The young Mexican national has now been transported to a government-contracted juvenile shelter in San Antonio, 150 miles from Laredo, and put into deportation proceedings.

The Border Patrol defends its agents, saying they escorted Rosamaria to the children's hospital to ensure she received appropriate medical care and then processed her according to U.S. immigration laws.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/26/560149316/10-year-old-girl-is-detained-by-ice-officers-after-emergency-surgery