The facts, stark and undeniable, tell a damning story of systems working against their most vulnerable citizens. On February 3, 2025, Sara and her family were traveling from their home in the Rio Grande Valley to Houston for an urgent appointment at Texas Children’s Hospital when they were stopped at the Sarita immigration checkpoint in Texas. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials detained her parents, Maria and Juan Hernández, for lacking proper documentation.
What followed was a devastating crisis for the family: Sara’s parents faced an impossible choice — leave their five children, four of whom are U.S. citizens, behind in America or keep the family together in deportation. They chose unity, and within hours, the entire family was expelled to Mexico, including Sara, whose recent brain tumor surgery required ongoing rehabilitation and medication to control seizures.
Since their deportation, Sara’s condition has deteriorated significantly. Her mother reports persistent brain swelling causing speech difficulties and mobility issues. The rural Mexican community where they now reside lacks even basic medical facilities capable of treating her condition, let alone providing the specialized care required for pediatric brain cancer recovery.
The Texas Civil Rights Project has filed a formal complaint against CBP, alleging that officers denied urgent medical assistance and mistreated the family during detention. Meanwhile, the family’s attorneys have submitted a humanitarian parole request to allow them back into the U.S. so Sara can resume her critical treatment regimen.
This case lays bare the cold mechanics of an immigration enforcement system that prioritizes deportation quotas over the welfare of American citizens. The agents who processed the family’s removal were not rogue actors but representatives of a system functioning according to its established priorities — priorities that somehow determined that expelling a brain cancer patient from her country of citizenship was an acceptable outcome.
What civilized nation removes its own citizens to territories where they cannot receive life-saving care? Critics argue this represents the practical application of policies that have elevated immigration enforcement above all other considerations, including the constitutional rights of American children and basic humanitarian principles.
As Sara’s untreated condition continues to compromise her development, health advocates point to her case as evidence of a system that has lost its moral bearings. A government willing to sacrifice the health of its youngest citizens on the altar of enforcement purity raises profound questions about national priorities and values.
The humanitarian parole request represents a last-ditch effort to secure basic medical treatment for an American child who should never have faced deportation in the first place. That such extraordinary measures are necessary to ensure a U.S. citizen can access healthcare on American soil reveals uncomfortable truths about who truly matters in the current enforcement paradigm.
While politicians debate abstract immigration principles in Washington, Sara Hernández García — American by birth and by right — suffers the very real consequences of policies that have somehow determined that her citizenship, her health, and her future matter less than the documentation status of her parents.