Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Interesting details on this case, c omplaint submitted on behalf of the family.
The child was being treated in Houston at Texas Children's Hospital.Each time they traveled from the Rio Grande Valley to Houston, they went through a checkpoint where they presente a letter from the hospital explaining the child's need for care. She developed symptoms on Feb 3 and the family headed to the hospital. Sara, the child with the cancer, wears a leg brace. Her parents have a nasal spray to give her if she has a seizure (this is probably nasal valium, something I have heard about because I have a niece with epilepsy and frequent seizures).
They had always been let through the checkpoint until that day. They were taken into custody and some of their treatment by officers was appalling--including taking away the emergency seizure nasal medication and locking it up, where the next shift could ot find it. (Their son, who has acne, was told by one officer he needed to masturbate more.)
Once in Mexico, Mexican authorities arranged for taxi transportation to a secure shelter to protect them from kidnappers who infest the area; according to the complaint, US citizens (two of the children) are at particular risk of kidnapping. They saw bodies in the streets in the area near the shelter.
https://www.txcivilrights.org/_files/ugd/9fea3a_ae52f88df10742f99362e3c14b452213.pdf
I am the pp who posted this.
It is discouraging how many people who support Trump's immigration policies focused only on the family's status vis a vis those policies and NOT how those policies were carried out.
Whatever your position about immigration and people without legal status, do you or do you NOT think that representatives of the US govt should conduct themselves professionally and treat people with respect? Do you not think they should demonstrate concern for medical problems affecting US children?--because they did not even do that.
So, since you couldn't be bothered, I am posting some of the complaint with bolded statements.
The family had previously passed through this checkpoint without
incident several times when taking Sara to appointments at Texas Children’s. Each time, the family
showed CBP officers a letter from Texas Children’s staff explaining that Sara needed care at the
hospital.
The family arrived at the Sarita Checkpoint and presented the letter. The letter explained that Sara
is a patient at the hospital “due to treatment for a brain tumor” and that because of “the grave
nature and complexity of her disease,” it is “necessary” that Sara “continue to be followed closely
by the treatment team at Texas Children’s Hospital.”10 The letter requested that the parents be
permitted to travel in order to oversee care.11 The parents also showed officers the children’s birth
certificates demonstrating that they are U.S. citizens, and showed them a letter from their
immigration attorney, while also explaining that they are in the process of applying for T visas.
Rather than let Sara proceed to Texas Children’s, CBP officers detained the entire family. An
officer called staff at
Texas Children’s who confirmed that the daughter was a patient of the
hospital12 and that due to the nature of her condition she would likely be transferred to Texas
Children’s if she were brought to a local facility. At this point, officers neither allowed the family
to proceed to Texas Children’s
nor brought her to a local facility to address her potential medical
emergency. Officers took no action at all to ensure Sara got the care she needed. Instead, they
confiscated her medication
While the family was waiting, officers told the parents that someone would need to come pick up
their vehicle. The parents called their pastor. When the pastor arrived, he told CBP personnel about
Sara’s medical condition.
The officer told him that Sara—a U.S. citizen—would need to get a
medical visa.
One of the officers tried to take away Sara’s foot brace, but Maria protested
and explained that she needed it. Officers brought the family inside the facility to a cage where an
officer reviewed the family’s documents, including the children’s birth certificates showing that
they are U.S. citizens, and a letter from their immigration attorney.
Officers then separated the family by gender and put them into two lines.
A female officer looked
at Manuel’s acne and said that he needed to masturbate more. Maria was incensed when she
overheard this remark and told the officers that they were insulting a U.S. citizen. Officers searched
each member of the family, including the pat downs of sensitive parts of their bodies.
Six-year-old
Vicente, a U.S. citizen, later asked his mom why they touched him “down there.”
. A male staff member asked Elizabeth how old she was and told her that
“you’re going to start burning oil soon,” referring to menstruation.
Maria told a medical staff member about Sara’s surgery and condition, hoping that they would
allow Sara to take her medication.
The staff member accused her of lying.
Eventually medical staff allowed Sara to take her evening dose of
seizure medication,
but locked up the emergency medical spray.
Maria remembers that the room was very small and could
barely fit two twin beds. Th
e mats on the floor were very dirty and staff gave the family wipes to
clean them off with. A little while after officers put them in the room, Maria saw an officer pass
by the cell and told them
she wanted to speak to her attorney. The officer mocked her, asking if
she thought her attorney was going to be available twenty-four hours a day.
The room was very hot and very bright, like an incubator.
The lights did not shut off all night. Sara
and her sisters tossed and turned but did not sleep well. Twelve hours earlier, Sara’s parents were
so worried about her that they rushed the family towards Houston for emergency care. Instead of
granting her that care, CBP forced a
child who was still recovering from brain surgery to sleep in
a hot, dirty, brightly lit cell.
supervisor, came to Juan and started pressuring him to sign a
deportation order. Juan refused and asked to speak to his attorney.
The officers told him that
criminals do not have the right to speak to an attorney. One of the officers got very close to Juan,
who feared the officer was going to punch him. After some time, the officers got frustrated and
went to Maria’s cell and
demanded she sign a deportation order. One officer
threatened that the
government would take away her children and she would never speak to them again. Maria again
asked to speak to her attorney, and the officer told her that she was a criminal and had no right to
an attorney. The officers started screaming at Maria. Maria started to cry.
After a while, officers allowed Maria to speak to an attorney. They brought her to a room with
phones. She was able to contact her attorney’s office and spoke to an assistant for only
three
minutes before an officer opened the door and ordered her to hang up.
An officer saw Maria was crying and tried to reassure her that they would not take away her
children. The officer told Maria that there was a woman in the facility who collects complaints and
sends them to Washington. Maria later spoke to the woman and told her story. The woman seemed
very angry and spoke on the phone to someone about their situation. The woman said that
it would
be a serious complaint because there were two U.S. citizen children with serious medical
conditions in CBP custody.
The woman asked Maria to identify the officers who threatened to take away her children, which
Maria did. After that, the woman took Maria to the medical area to identify the staff who wanted
to throw out Sara’s medicine. The woman started arguing with the staff, telling them that the child
needed to be in Houston for medical care and that they didn’t understand the complexity of Sara’s
condition.
The woman demanded that the staff show her where Sara’s emergency medicine was,
and the staff explained that they did not know because they were not on shift the previous evening.
During this confrontation, Sara fell asleep in a chair. The medical staff asked if this was normal,
and Maria explained that the doctors told them to expect this because Sara’s brain was still swollen
from the surgery.
The woman told Maria she would file a complaint and left the family. Maria and her daughters
returned to the cell. The officer who Maria understood to be a supervisor came back and demanded
that
Maria sign the deportation order. Maria protested, saying that Sara needed treatment in the
U.S. The officer said Sara’s condition could be treated in Mexico.
The officer then said that he
knows important people in Washington, and that if he makes a phone call, the government would
take her children and she would not see them again.
Another officer came and asked Maria why she risked her children by taking them out into the
brush. Maria was confused and explained that they were stopped at a checkpoint while trying to
get to the hospital. Later, the same officer started talking to Manuel.
Manuel explained that he is a
U.S. citizen and that he goes to a local high school. The officer chatted with the other children in
English as well.
Maria estimates that she told over thirty individual CBP officers and facility staff at the checkpoint
and processing center about both Sara’s condition and that her children were U.S. citizens.
People in the region
generally believe that all U.S. citizens have money,
so the gangs will assume they can get a good
ransom by taking the children.
Sara and Manuel cannot access medical care in Mexico. They are not registered as Mexican
citizens and thus cannot currently access the Mexican medical system. The family does not have
money to pay for any private appointments. Maria and Juan also do not believe that they would
have access to the pediatric neuro-oncologists and other specialists necessary to treat Sara.
They
also worry that if they send Sara to Houston for treatment with a trusted friend or adult, CBP will
think she is being trafficked and take her into government custody
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