Immigration agents detain girl with cerebral palsy after surgery: report

Federal immigration authorities reportedly detained a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy after she received surgery in Texas.

The girl was detained by authorities after the ambulance in which she was riding passed through a Border Patrol checkpoint, according to The New York Times.

Border Patrol agents reportedly followed the ambulance to the hospital, where she underwent emergency gall bladder surgery, and waited outside the girl’s room until she was released from the facility.

After she was released from the hospital, the girl was reportedly taken to a facility in San Antonio for migrant children who come to the U.S. alone.

{mosads}Rosamaria Hernandez was brought to the U.S. when she was 3 months old and was living in Laredo, Texas, according to the Times. When her ambulance was stopped, she was being taken to a medical center in Corpus Christi.

The girl’s parents live in Laredo, and neither have legal status.

According to Hernandez’s cousin, who was in the girl’s ambulance and is a U.S. citizen, agents tried to convince the family to have the girl taken to a hospital in Mexico.

“I’m a mother. All I wanted was for her to get the surgery that she needed,” Hernandez’s mother, Felipa de la Cruz, told the newspaper.

“It never crossed my mind that any of what is happening right now could happen. When you’re a mother, all you care about is your child.”

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said he understands that Customs and Border Protection has a “tremendous duty to protect our nation.”

“But we should be devoting our resources and focus on bigger threats,” he said in a statement.