US seeks to deport Honduran mom, sick children to Guatemala
HOUSTON (AP) — The U.S. government says it will deport a Honduran mother and her two sick children, both of whom are currently hospitalized, to Guatemala as soon as it can get them medically cleared to travel, according to court documents and the family’s advocates.
The family’s advocates accuse the U.S. of disregarding the health of the children, ages 1 and 6, to push forward a plan currently being challenged in court to send planeloads of families to different countries so that they can seek asylum elsewhere.
Both children have been hospitalized in recent days in South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. In court papers, the U.S. government has said it intends to deport the family to Guatemala on Tuesday, pending clearance “from a medical professional.”
“The mother is desperate. She thought her baby was going to die,” said Dr. Amy Cohen, a doctor who monitors the government’s compliance with a landmark court settlement governing how migrant children are treated known as the Flores agreement.
“Whenever the baby coughs, her whole body shakes,” Cohen said. “The 6-year-old looked exhausted. Everyone looked malnourished.”
According to Cohen, the family says both children were healthy when they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without authorization in late December.
A lawsuit filed by the family says they were taken first to the U.S. Border Patrol’s processing center in McAllen, Texas, a former warehouse where migrants are held in large fenced-in pens, then to a complex of tents built at the port city of Donna, where they were held for several days longer than the Border Patrol’s own 72-hour limit to detain people.
The lawsuit blames the children’s illnesses on inadequate medical care and the food served at the Donna tents, which they describe as...