Latest news with #U.S.CitizenshipandImmigrationServices
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Deported Child With Rare Brain Tumor Begs Trump Admin to Save Her Life
An 11-year-old United States citizen deported with her undocumented parents is pleading with the Trump administration to let her family return so she can receive life-saving care. The girl, who suffers from a 'rare brain tumor,' was detained after her family rushed to a Texas hospital in February. She was removed from the U.S. the following day during the second week of President Donald Trump's second term. Attorneys for the child, whose symptoms have worsened since being deported, have now filed for humanitarian parole with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, hoping the family will be allowed to return, at least temporarily, so she can receive treatment. 'We're fighting for my girl's life,' the child's mother told NBC News. She added that her daughter isn't recovering from 'just any disease' and that 'she is not going to be cured overnight; it's something that takes time.' The family has withheld their names from the media for fear that they may be targeted in the rural Mexican village where they currently reside. Danny Woodward, an attorney for the family who works with the Texas Civil Rights Project, told the Daily Beast that U.S. citizens are at risk of being kidnapped and extorted by drug cartels in the area. 'Within a week or two, after they got to where they are, the mom and dad had been leaving the house to do farm work, and they did see some bodies along the side of the road that they believe were victims of criminal or cartel violence,' Woodward told the Beast. Despite Trump's migrant crackdown, Woodward said he has 'hope' that the child's humanitarian parole will be granted. Woodward pointed to a similar case in California, where a four-year-old girl suffering from a life-threatening intestinal illness was granted humanitarian parole in late May after public pleas for deportation relief. Woodward said he requested that the Texas family's appeal be expedited, but he worries it might still take months. The family was detained at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoint on Feb. 3. Woodward said the girl's parents were driving from their home in Texas' Rio Grande Valley to see a specialist in Houston after she woke up feeling dizzy with a headache—two symptoms her doctor warned required immediate hospitalization. This was not the first time the family trekked hours from South Texas to Houston when symptoms emerged, Woodward said. The first instance was in February 2024, when she had a severe seizure that required medical transport by helicopter. The scare left her mom fearing that the girl, then 9, was 'dying in her arms,' Woodward said. Doctors in Houston ultimately saved her life. The family had made the same trip about five other times in 2024, all without issue, Woodward said. They carried a letter from the hospital that explained their reason for traveling without legal documentation. Woodward said hospitals in the Rio Grande Valley cannot handle the girl's condition, which doctors described as being so rare, they considered writing a report about it for publication in a medical journal. This meant the family had to seek treatment in Houston. February marked the family's first trip to Houston during Trump's presidency, and it quickly became clear that procedures had changed, Woodward said. On their way north, the family encountered one of the numerous checkpoints located within 100 miles of the Southern Border—checkpoints they had cleared without issue on previous trips. They were asked to provide documentation by a federal agent, so they showed their birth certificates and a letter provided by the hospital, Woodward said, but those were no longer sufficient. The family, including its three U.S. citizen children, was detained and taken to a holding facility in South Texas, where they stayed the night. The sick child never made it to the hospital, Woodward said, and the family was removed from the country the following day. The rapid removal meant they did not have time to consult with a lawyer, Woodward said. Instead, he said that the girl's mom spoke to an attorney for just three minutes by phone before she was allegedly pressured to hang up by officials. Woodward said no member of the family has been convicted of a crime in the U.S. aside from immigration-related charges. He declined to specify when the family entered the country, but stated that the family's oldest child, an 18-year-old, was a U.S. citizen because he was born in the United States. The parents are working in fields in Mexico to cover expenses, Woodward said, but the money does not come close to covering the high costs of their daughter's treatment or anti-seizure medication. Procuring treatment and medicine in Mexico is also complicated because the girl is not a Mexican citizen. 'They've been struggling,' Woodward said. 'I think they have a system worked out now, but they were even struggling to get her anti-seizure medication because the doctors have some very precise formula that I guess only U.S. pharmacies will do.' Woodward said he has seen an increase in messages from Trump voters who say they did not vote for the deportation of non-criminal migrants with a deathly sick U.S. citizen child. 'We've been seeing messages from a lot of different people across the political spectrum saying, like, 'OK, maybe we voted for immigration crackdowns or more immigration enforcement, but we didn't vote for this,'' he said. 'You know, deporting 10-year-olds, U.S. citizen children. I think that this humanitarian parole application is kind of a chance to send that message and just say, 'OK, we hear you on that,' like, 'this wasn't the right way to go with this particular case.''
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Deported family of 11-year-old U.S. citizen recovering from rare brain tumor requests humanitarian parole
An 11-year-old girl who is a U.S. citizen and is recovering from a rare brain tumor has been living in Mexico since immigration authorities removed her from Texas when they deported her undocumented parents four months ago. Four of her siblings, three of whom are also U.S. citizens, were also sent to Mexico with the parents. Since then, the girl's health condition has not improved, her mother told NBC News. In an attempt to return to the United States to get her the care she needs, the family applied for humanitarian parole with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on Thursday. 'We're fighting for my girl's life," the mother said, adding that her daughter isn't recovering from "just any disease. ... She is not going to be cured overnight; it's something that takes time.' Their request is for the undocumented parents and the girl's noncitizen sibling to be allowed to enter and live in the U.S. temporarily, so that the ailing girl can have "the full support of her family as she gets treatment to help save her life,' said Danny Woodward of the Texas Civil Rights Project, a legal advocacy organization representing the family. The mother said her daughter's headaches and dizziness have worsened. The symptoms have become so recurrent that the girl's parents spend sleepless nights taking turns monitoring and caring for her. 'She is very scared,' mother said. "We want to be there for her, we want to take care of her 100% like we've been doing so far. We don't want to be separated from her for even a minute." When the girl was in the U.S., under the care of doctors in Houston "who saved her life," the parents were instructed to rush her to the hospital for an emergency check-up whenever she felt these symptoms, the mother said. "But out here, that is impossible," she said in Spanish from Mexico, where her family was deported to Monterrey, an area known for the kidnapping of U.S. citizens. 'Where am I going to go?" NBC News is not publishing the family members' names out of concerns for their safety. Medical records show the child underwent surgery last year to remove a brain tumor caused by an 'unnamed 'novel' condition,' according to Woodward. This means that few medical specialists can effectively treat and monitor her. The mother said the girl's doctors in the U.S. were not just treating her daughter's illness; they were "also studying it because they don't know what caused it, why it was so aggressive." Even from Mexico, she has been in touch with the girl's doctors in the U.S., but they can't really assess what's happening to her from afar. The surgery that saved her life last year did leave the girl with some lasting side effects. The swelling on her brain is still not fully gone, causing difficulties with speech and mobility of the right side of her body as well as memory problems. These require the girl to routinely checking in with doctors monitoring her recovery, get MRI scans every three months, attend rehabilitation therapy sessions and take medication to prevent seizures. But she has not been able to consistently access this care since the family was deported, her mother and attorney said. The mother insists that the rod fixator preventing her daughter's right foot from turning inward needs to be replaced, as the girl trips more than usual. Her seizure medication is being sent to her from the United States because the family can't find the exact one she needs in Mexico, Woodward said. MRIs have also "turned out to be very expensive and challenging for the family to get in Mexico.' The girl has only been able to get one medical checkup and MRI in Monterrey. The experience made the mother realize how difficult it would be to get a new doctor in Mexico who can get up to speed with her daughter's medical history and treat her illness. 'Not any doctor wants to take on such a huge commitment,' the mother said. "It's like starting from scratch, or worse." Additionally, 'the stress of the whole situation has definitely played a negative role' in the girl's recovery, Woodward said. 'This family has been severely traumatized." On Feb. 3, the family was driving from the Rio Grande Valley area, where they lived, to Houston, where the girl's doctors are based, for an emergency medical checkup. On the way, they stopped at a stateside immigration checkpoint, one they have passed through multiple times. But this time, immigration authorities arrested the parents after they were unable to show legal immigration documentation. Five of their children, ages 15, 13, 11, 8 and 6, were with them when they were arrested. Woodward said the parents have never done anything to make them a priority for removal. The entire family was 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. "Another layer of this is the fact that the parents were never even given their due process rights, so they never were allowed to go in front of an immigration judge to plead their case," said Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees USCIS, previously told NBC News that reports of the family's situation are 'inaccurate' and declined to speak on the specifics of the case, citing privacy reasons. They said in a statement that when 'someone is given expedited removal orders and chooses to disregard them, they will face the consequences.' The eldest son, an 18-year-old U.S. citizen, was left behind in the U.S. "The older boy woke up one morning and learned that his entire family was gone," Woodward said. He graduated high school alone, without his family. 'It breaks our hearts,' the mother said as she wept, adding that her son dreams of going to college and becoming a neurosurgeon after seeing how doctors saved his sister's life, but 'he can't do that alone. He needs our support — even though we talk to him every day, it's really hard to be away." Instead of going to college, her son is working a fast-food job, hoping to soon see his family return home. While the Trump administration has aggressively stepped up the pace of deportations, including for immigrants who don't have criminal charges or convictions against them, there are three recent cases giving the girl's family hope. A Mexican mother living in California and her 4-year-old girl, who suffers from a life-threatening intestinal illness, were granted humanitarian parole this month following a public plea for deportation relief. In April, a Venezuelan immigrant in Chicago was released from immigration detention under humanitarian parole to serve as an organ donor for his ailing brother. In March, an undocumented mother in California caring for her 21-year-old daughter, a U.S. citizen undergoing treatment for bone cancer, was detained by immigration authorities and later released "for humanitarian reasons." Even though the relatives in these cases were not deported, Woodward said, "I don't think that should make any difference from the perspective of the federal government." "It's a discretionary choice for them to make," he said. "Our case, I think, it's a very strong one for humanitarian parole." The family's parole application includes letters of support from several members of Congress, including Democratic Reps. Adriano Espaillat of New York and Sylvia Garcia and Joaquin Castro of Texas, all of whom met with the family in Mexico last month. "We want them to give us that chance," the mother said. "We are not criminals. We are not delinquents. We simply want to save our daughter." This article was originally published on
NBC News
12-06-2025
- Health
- NBC News
Deported family of 11-year-old U.S. citizen recovering from a rare brain tumor requests humanitarian parole
An 11-year-old girl who is a U.S. citizen and is recovering from a rare brain tumor has been living in Mexico since immigration authorities removed her from Texas when they deported her undocumented parents four months ago. Four of her siblings, three of whom are also U.S. citizens, were also sent to Mexico with the parents. Since then, the girl's health condition has not improved, her mother told NBC News. In an attempt to return to the United States to get her the care she needs, the family applied for humanitarian parole with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on Thursday. 'We're fighting for my girl's life," the mother said, adding that her daughter isn't recovering from "just any disease. ... She is not going to be cured overnight; it's something that takes time.' Their request is for the undocumented parents and the girl's noncitizen sibling to be allowed to enter and live in the U.S. temporarily, so that the ailing girl can have "the full support of her family as she gets treatment to help save her life,' said Danny Woodward of the Texas Civil Rights Project, a legal advocacy organization representing the family. The mother said her daughter's headaches and dizziness have worsened. The symptoms have become so recurrent that the girl's parents spend sleepless nights taking turns monitoring and caring for her. 'She is very scared,' mother said. "We want to be there for her, we want to take care of her 100% like we've been doing so far. We don't want to be separated from her for even a minute." When the girl was in the U.S., under the care of doctors in Houston "who saved her life," the parents were instructed to rush her to the hospital for an emergency check-up whenever she felt these symptoms, the mother said. "But out here, that is impossible," she said in Spanish from Mexico, where her family was deported to Monterrey, an area known for the kidnapping of U.S. citizens. 'Where am I going to go?" NBC News is not publishing the family members' names out of concerns for their safety. Medical records show the child underwent surgery last year to remove a brain tumor caused by an 'unnamed 'novel' condition,' according to Woodward. This means that few medical specialists can effectively treat and monitor her. The mother said the girl's doctors in the U.S. were not just treating her daughter's illness; they were "also studying it because they don't know what caused it, why it was so aggressive." Even from Mexico, she has been in touch with the girl's doctors in the U.S., but they can't really assess what's happening to her from afar. The surgery that saved her life last year did leave the girl with some lasting side effects. The swelling on her brain is still not fully gone, causing difficulties with speech and mobility of the right side of her body as well as memory problems. These require the girl to routinely checking in with doctors monitoring her recovery, get MRI scans every three months, attend rehabilitation therapy sessions and take medication to prevent seizures. But she has not been able to consistently access this care since the family was deported, her mother and attorney said. The mother insists that the rod fixator preventing her daughter's right foot from turning inward needs to be replaced, as the girl trips more than usual. Her seizure medication is being sent to her from the United States because the family can't find the exact one she needs in Mexico, Woodward said. MRIs have also "turned out to be very expensive and challenging for the family to get in Mexico.' The girl has only been able to get one medical checkup and MRI in Monterrey. The experience made the mother realize how difficult it would be to get a new doctor in Mexico who can get up to speed with her daughter's medical history and treat her illness. 'Not any doctor wants to take on such a huge commitment,' the mother said. "It's like starting from scratch, or worse." Additionally, 'the stress of the whole situation has definitely played a negative role' in the girl's recovery, Woodward said. 'This family has been severely traumatized." A family's 'truncated dreams' On Feb. 3, the family was driving from the Rio Grande Valley area, where they lived, to Houston, where the girl's doctors are based, for an emergency medical checkup. On the way, they stopped at a stateside immigration checkpoint, one they have passed through multiple times. But this time, immigration authorities arrested the parents after they were unable to show legal immigration documentation. Five of their children, ages 15, 13, 11, 8 and 6, were with them when they were arrested. Woodward said the parents have never done anything to make them a priority for removal. The entire family was 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. "Another layer of this is the fact that the parents were never even given their due process rights, so they never were allowed to go in front of an immigration judge to plead their case," said Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees USCIS, previously told NBC News that reports of the family's situation are 'inaccurate' and declined to speak on the specifics of the case, citing privacy reasons. They said in a statement that when 'someone is given expedited removal orders and chooses to disregard them, they will face the consequences.' The eldest son, an 18-year-old U.S. citizen, was left behind in the U.S. "The older boy woke up one morning and learned that his entire family was gone," Woodward said. He graduated high school alone, without his family. 'It breaks our hearts,' the mother said as she wept, adding that her son dreams of going to college and becoming a neurosurgeon after seeing how doctors saved his sister's life, but 'he can't do that alone. He needs our support — even though we talk to him every day, it's really hard to be away." Instead of going to college, her son is working a fast-food job, hoping to soon see his family return home. While the Trump administration has aggressively stepped up the pace of deportations, including for immigrants who don't have criminal charges or convictions against them, there are three recent cases giving the girl's family hope. A Mexican mother living in California and her 4-year-old girl, who suffers from a life-threatening intestinal illness, were granted humanitarian parole this month following a public plea for deportation relief. In April, a Venezuelan immigrant in Chicago was released from immigration detention under humanitarian parole to serve as an organ donor for his ailing brother. In March, an undocumented mother in California caring for her 21-year-old daughter, a U.S. citizen undergoing treatment for bone cancer, was detained by immigration authorities and later released "for humanitarian reasons." Even though the relatives in these cases were not deported, Woodward said, "I don't think that should make any difference from the perspective of the federal government." "It's a discretionary choice for them to make," he said. "Our case, I think, it's a very strong one for humanitarian parole." The family's parole application includes letters of support from several members of Congress, including Democratic Reps. Adriano Espaillat of New York and Sylvia Garcia and Joaquin Castro of Texas, all of whom met with the family in Mexico last month. "We want them to give us that chance," the mother said. "We are not criminals. We are not delinquents. We simply want to save our daughter."
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Terminating Temporary Protected Status for Afghans is an abomination
For the 10,000 Afghan refugees who have made the U.S. home after fleeing a growing humanitarian crisis under Taliban rule, the future is no longer even temporarily secure. On May 12, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it will terminate Afghanistan's designation for Temporary Protected Status, effective July 14, devastating not only its beneficiaries but also the communities that have embraced them. This is personal to me. And it should be personal for anyone who believes in standing up to oppression and protecting those most at risk. Created in 1990, Temporary Protected Status provides individuals from countries facing armed conflict, environmental disaster or other extraordinary conditions, with legal status and work authorization for renewable 18-month periods. Applicants undergo thorough background checks to be eligible for and maintain their status. They are not admitted if they are felons, have several misdemeanors, or fail to meet the other requirements for the program, as outlined by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Temporary Protected Status has served as an incredibly effective legal pathway for refugees fleeing various large-scale conflicts to find safety while helping to strengthen American communities and our economy. The Biden administration redesignated Afghanistan for Temporary Protected Status in the fall of 2023 for good reason. The Taliban's return had brought with it renewed political repression, severe economic collapse and destruction of fundamental rights, especially for women and girls. None of that has changed. Yet now, DHS has announced protections will be stripped away in a few short weeks. Moreover, the Trump administration's recent travel ban, which includes Afghanistan, adds further confusion, chaos, and contradiction to this decision. When lifting Afghanistan's Temporary Protected Status designation, the administration cited Afghanistan's security and economic improvements as a reason for doing so. However, when implementing the travel ban, the administration noted security issues and a lack of 'appropriate screening and vetting measures' as justification. This is more than a policy misstep. It is a moral failure. President Trump, who rightfully criticized his predecessor for his chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan as 'the most embarrassing event in the history of our country,' is effectively sending families back into the grip of a Taliban regime sanctioned by his administration as Specially Designated Global Terrorists. This issue hits me particularly close to home. Decades ago, I served in Iran through the Peace Corps and later as the press attaché at the embassy in Tehran, where I was held hostage for 444 days. Despite this trauma, I returned to the region after 9/11 to work on the Afghan Education Project, coordinated by Teachers College, Columbia University. For three years, I worked to modify the school curriculum to erase Taliban-imposed propaganda and foster a more open, free and democratic society. During that time, I became close with my driver and occasional translator, Shamgul. Without him, the work could not have happened, and my own safety would have been at greater risk. He helped keep me and many others safe as we moved through Kabul and beyond. We considered each other family. After the Taliban regained power, I tried desperately to get officials in Washington to bring him and his two sons to America, but failed, and Shamgul was murdered by the Taliban for having worked with us. Families that did make it to America are now being abandoned and told they must return to danger and perhaps a similar fate. This must not happen. The program was created to prevent this scenario. It offers stability, safety and the chance to contribute. And it works. Afghan Temporary Protected Status holders contribute $296 million to the U.S. economy annually, and the program remains popular among voters. According to a joint poll by the SEIU and 66 percent of voters in battleground states support using the program as an effective legal pathway for protection from deportation and for work authorization. The Trump administration's decision to remove Afghanistan's designation and subsequent travel ban is a betrayal of American values. I have spent my life on the front lines of the U.S. mission to advance democracy, human rights, peace and security. I strongly encourage the current administration to live up to these ideals and protect innocent Afghans seeking refuge. The moral test of a nation is how it treats those with the least power. Right now, we are failing that test. Barry Rosen is a veteran of the Peace Corps, survivor of the Iran Hostage Crisis and a co-founder of Hostage Aid Worldwide. He worked with UNICEF in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2005. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
11-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Terminating Temporary Protected Status for Afghans is an abomination
For the 10,000 Afghan refugees who have made the U.S. home after fleeing a growing humanitarian crisis under Taliban rule, the future is no longer even temporarily secure. On May 12, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it will terminate Afghanistan's designation for Temporary Protected Status, effective July 14, devastating not only its beneficiaries but also the communities that have embraced them. This is personal to me. And it should be personal for anyone who believes in standing up to oppression and protecting those most at risk. Created in 1990, Temporary Protected Status provides individuals from countries facing armed conflict, environmental disaster or other extraordinary conditions, with legal status and work authorization for renewable 18-month periods. Applicants undergo thorough background checks to be eligible for and maintain their status. They are not admitted if they are felons, have several misdemeanors, or fail to meet the other requirements for the program, as outlined by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Temporary Protected Status has served as an incredibly effective legal pathway for refugees fleeing various large-scale conflicts to find safety while helping to strengthen American communities and our economy. The Biden administration redesignated Afghanistan for Temporary Protected Status in the fall of 2023 for good reason. The Taliban's return had brought with it renewed political repression, severe economic collapse and destruction of fundamental rights, especially for women and girls. None of that has changed. Yet now, DHS has announced protections will be stripped away in a few short weeks. Moreover, the Trump administration's recent travel ban, which includes Afghanistan, adds further confusion, chaos, and contradiction to this decision. When lifting Afghanistan's Temporary Protected Status designation, the administration cited Afghanistan's security and economic improvements as a reason for doing so. However, when implementing the travel ban, the administration noted security issues and a lack of 'appropriate screening and vetting measures' as justification. This is more than a policy misstep. It is a moral failure. President Trump, who rightfully criticized his predecessor for his chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan as 'the most embarrassing event in the history of our country,' is effectively sending families back into the grip of a Taliban regime sanctioned by his administration as Specially Designated Global Terrorists. This issue hits me particularly close to home. Decades ago, I served in Iran through the Peace Corps and later as the press attaché at the embassy in Tehran, where I was held hostage for 444 days. Despite this trauma, I returned to the region after 9/11 to work on the Afghan Education Project, coordinated by Teachers College, Columbia University. For three years, I worked to modify the school curriculum to erase Taliban-imposed propaganda and foster a more open, free and democratic society. During that time, I became close with my driver and occasional translator, Shamgul. Without him, the work could not have happened, and my own safety would have been at greater risk. He helped keep me and many others safe as we moved through Kabul and beyond. We considered each other family. After the Taliban regained power, I tried desperately to get officials in Washington to bring him and his two sons to America, but failed, and Shamgul was murdered by the Taliban for having worked with us. Families that did make it to America are now being abandoned and told they must return to danger and perhaps a similar fate. This must not happen. The program was created to prevent this scenario. It offers stability, safety and the chance to contribute. And it works. Afghan Temporary Protected Status holders contribute $296 million to the U.S. economy annually, and the program remains popular among voters. According to a joint poll by the SEIU and 66 percent of voters in battleground states support using the program as an effective legal pathway for protection from deportation and for work authorization. The Trump administration's decision to remove Afghanistan's designation and subsequent travel ban is a betrayal of American values. I have spent my life on the front lines of the U.S. mission to advance democracy, human rights, peace and security. I strongly encourage the current administration to live up to these ideals and protect innocent Afghans seeking refuge. The moral test of a nation is how it treats those with the least power. Right now, we are failing that test. Barry Rosen is a veteran of the Peace Corps, survivor of the Iran Hostage Crisis and a co-founder of Hostage Aid Worldwide. He worked with UNICEF in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2005.
