The mother of four U.S. citizen children, including a 10-year-old girl recovering from brain cancer, is pleading for her family’s return to the United States.
The family was removed from the country last month after immigration authorities deported the undocumented parents to Mexico.
Speaking Thursday from Mexico, the mother said in a video message in Spanish provided to NBC News that “we call on the elected officials of the United States to please help us come back so that our little girl continues to receive the medical services she needs.”
She first told NBC News this week what took place in early February, when the family was rushing from Rio Grande City, Texas, where they lived, to Houston, where the girl has received cancer care, for an emergency medical checkup.
On the way there, they stopped at an immigration checkpoint, the one they have passed through multiple times when they have driven to Houston. The parents were equipped with letters from their doctors and lawyers to show the officers at the checkpoint to get through. But the letters weren’t enough this time.
“We have made this trip across Texas several times to take our daughter to the hospital so that she can receive the medical attention, which is what keeps her well,” her mother said in her video message. “That’s what keeps her safe.”
"This time, we were detained, held, and we faced the worst decision, an impossible one, to be permanently separated from our children or to be deported together,” she said.
When undocumented parents of U.S.-born children are picked up by immigration authorities, they face the risk of losing custody of their children. Without power-of-attorney documents or guardianships outlining who will take care of the children left behind, the children go into the U.S. foster care system, making it harder for parents to regain custody of their children in the future.
Immigration authorities arrested the woman and her husband after they were unable to show legal immigration documentation. Present with the parents were five of their children, four of whom are U.S. citizens. The parents and the children were then taken to a detention facility, where they spent 24 hours before they were placed in a van and dropped on the Mexico side of a Texas bridge on Feb. 4.
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On Thursday, a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said via email that the reports of the family’s situation are “inaccurate” because “when someone is given expedited removal orders and chooses to disregard them, they will face the consequences” of the process. They stated they couldn’t speak about the specifics of the case for privacy reasons.
NBC News is withholding the names of the woman and the rest of the family members, since they were deported to an area in Mexico that is known for kidnapping U.S. citizens.
“We are now deported to Mexico without access to the urgent medical care our daughter needs. Our children, including American citizens, have been forced to face a crisis that no child should have to face,” the woman said in the video, which was shared with NBC News by the Texas Civil Rights Project, a legal advocacy and litigation organization representing the family.
The 10-year-old girl was diagnosed with brain cancer last year and underwent surgery to remove the tumor. The swelling on her brain is still not fully gone, her mother said, causing difficulties with speech and mobility of the right side of her body. Before the family was removed from the United States, the girl was routinely checking in with doctors monitoring her recovery, attending rehabilitation therapy sessions and taking medication to prevent convulsions.
“She doesn’t deserve that suffering," her mother said. "She already has enough suffering from cancer without having the medical attention she needs.”
