Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents detained—and hours later, released—Silvia Macuixtle, an undocumented immigrant, after she had to travel through a Texas immigration checkpoint in order to get her U.S. citizen son to a hospital for emergency surgery. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s happened to others, and “with roughly 140 interior border checkpoints ... along the southern U.S. border,” it’s a constant fear for undocumented immigrants.
According to Think Progress, “Macuixtle’s immigration nightmare began when her son broke his arm and she took him to a hospital in Laredo, according to the immigrant advocacy group Workers Defense Action Fund. Laredo Medical Center Hospital staff reportedly told Macuixtle that her son would need surgery at the University Hospital in San Antonio Hospital”:
But because the ambulance had to cross an interior border checkpoint on I-35 between Laredo and San Antonio, Macuixtle had to choose whether to go with her son or send him alone in an ambulance. She was unable to find another U.S. citizen to accompany him.
“[Macuixtle was] told [her son] needed to go to San Antonio for a surgery he needed so she had a choice to make: whether she would send him by himself because he is a U.S. citizen but she isn’t, or she would go with him and risk deportation in the process,” Priscila Martinez, the Texas immigration coalition coordinator at Workers Defense Action Fund, told ThinkProgress Monday.
Macuixtle didn’t want the four year old to go alone—nor should any parent be forced into making this decision—but it’s the reality for immigrant families who live in the heavily militarized border region. She decided to go with him, and when the ambulance carrying them from Laredo to San Antonio stopped at a checkpoint, they were allowed to pass—but a “border agent followed the entire way,” and proceed to lurk in the hospital throughout the young boy’s surgery. “When Macuixtle’s son was discharged from the hospital, they drove back south where she was detained.”
Last fall, unleashed Border Patrol agents also targeted Oscar and Irma Sanchez, Texas immigrant parents who were rushing their sick child to a hospital. “Once they arrived at Driscoll Children's Hospital,” NPR reported, “the green-uniformed agents never left the undocumented couple's side. Officers followed the father to the bathroom and the cafeteria and asked the mother to leave the door open when she breast-fed Isaac.” Just weeks later, Border Patrol agents also stalked and detained 10-year-old Rosamaria Hernandez, who has cerebral palsy, as she was being rushed to emergency surgery.
“Rosamaria is finally free,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said following her release ten days later. “We’re thrilled that she can go home to heal surrounded by her family's love and support. Despite our relief, Border Patrol’s decision to target a young girl at a children’s hospital remains unconscionable. No child should go through this trauma and we are working to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” But, children continue to go through this trauma, and Border Patrol is flouting its own policy to do it:
After Trump became president, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has since clarified a guidance calling on federal agents to avoid detaining immigrants in so-called sensitive locations so as not to disrupt the daily activities of those places. Such locations include schools and hospitals.
The guidance allows federal agents to carry out an “enforcement action” and detain immigrants at these locations if they pose national security or public safety threats. Although Macuixtle was not detained at the hospital, the border agent reportedly stayed with her and her son as he recovered.
According to Think Progress, “CBP turned Macuixtle over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents where she was detained for two hours. She was finally released on her own recognizance on Sunday. Macuixtle is now awaiting a check-in with ICE in May.” But in a rarity, “Workers Defense Action Fund said ICE has ‘informed Macuixtle that she is eligible to apply for a work permit allowing her to care for her family.’” Spanish-language outlet Mundo Hispano reports she has four U.S. citizen kids, and she is the breadwinner for the family.
“The current climate has led to excessive fear and uncertainty that is really concerning regarding the health and well-being of children,” said Dr. Julie M. Linton, MD, co-chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Immigrant Child Health Special Interest Group. “When parents are scared, children are scared … the threat of separation from a parent really places children in a situation where we are disrupting the most essential and important part of their development.”
Macuixtle should never have been a Border Patrol priority for detainment in the first place, especially when Donald Trump is claiming he needs National Guard at the border because Border Patrol are overwhelmed by a supposed crisis. Unlikely, if they’re stalking sick kids at hospitals. When Macuixtle is now on ICE’s radar because she was just trying to get her sick child to medical care, it’s immigrant families that truly are in danger.