A 10-year-old brain cancer patient was deported along with her family to Mexico by immigration authorities after being stopped at a checkpoint in Texas. The incident took place last month when the girl was being rushed by her family from Rio Grande to Houston for an emergency checkup with specialists. While the child’s parents were undocumented, she was an American citizen.
According to NBC News, the family had taken at least five such trips for the girl’s medical requirements in the past and had passed through similar checkpoints without any issues. As per attorney Danny Woodward of the Texas Civil Rights Project, the parents of the child showed letters from her doctors and their lawyers to get through when they were stopped during the trips by immigration officers.
However, the letters didn’t help them during their trip last month. The family was arrested as they were unable to show legal immigration documents after being stopped at the checkpoint.
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The mother of the 10-year-old girl, speaking exclusively to NBC News, claimed that she stressed the importance of the trip and her daughter’s conditions to the officials who stopped them, but “they weren’t interested in hearing that.” She called the unfortunate situation “a very difficult thing” and she doesn’t “wish anyone to go through this situation.”
Woodward added that the parents, apart from lacking “valid immigration status in the US,” have “no criminal history.” Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, commented on the family’s ordeal, saying, “What is happening to this family is an absolute tragedy and it is something that is not isolated to just them. This is part of a pattern in practice that we’ve seen in the Trump administration.”
“We are calling on the government to parole the family in, to correct the harm that they’ve made, and to not do this to anyone else,” Garza added.
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Apart from the 10-year-old and her parents, 4 of her siblings were also in the car. The children are aged 15, 13, 8, and 6, respectively. Out of the 5 children, 4 were born in the US. This makes the child and 3 of her siblings American citizens. The identity of the individuals is being withheld by media outlets as they have been deported to an area in Mexico that is known for kidnapping American citizens.
Commenting on families being deported as a whole regardless of the status of individuals, Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, said, “Families can be deported together.” Homan left it to the parents to decide whether to leave America with their children or leave them behind.
However, the odds are stacked against undocumented parents who have US-born children when it comes to regaining custody of their children if they are picked up and deported by immigration authorities. If there’s no power-of-attorney document or guardianship mentioning who will take care of their children left behind, they will end up being taken into the US foster care system, making it a challenge for parents to regain custody.
🚨 🇺🇸 U.S. DEPORTS 10-YEAR-OLD CITIZEN BATTLING BRAIN CANCER
A 10-year-old U.S. citizen recovering from brain cancer was deported to Mexico alongside her undocumented parents after being stopped at a Texas immigration checkpoint.
Medical letters previously allowed safe passage… https://t.co/Jz3VKvNjj1 pic.twitter.com/e9katzqyHP
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) March 13, 2025
Apart from the 10-year-old, the oldest child of the family is also struggling with a health issue. Known as Long QT syndrome, the 15-year-old boy has a heart disorder that causes irregular heartbeats and it could be lethal if not treated well. Claiming that the ailing children did not receive the healthcare they needed in Mexico, the mother said, “The authorities have my children’s lives in their hands.”
Since being deported to Mexico, the family has moved into a house there, but the mother remarked that safety concerns keep them up at night, adding that her children haven’t been able to go to school. They have a 17-year-old son, who they left behind in Texas, after their deportation.
This isn’t a one-off thing where undocumented parents caring for ailing children of legal status have been targeted. Just two weeks ago, an undocumented mother who was looking after her 21-year-old daughter (a US citizen) undergoing treatment for bone cancer in California, was detained by immigration authorities. The mother was later released under humanitarian parole.
