U.S. Immigration Policy Is Breathtaking Malice

[Content Note: Nativism; disablism; abuse.]

Vivian Lee and Caitlin Dickerson at the New York Times report on one of the most horrendous examples of how malicious and abusive U.S. immigration policy has become (emphases mine):

A 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy has been detained by federal immigration authorities in Texas after she passed through a Border Patrol checkpoint on her way to a hospital to undergo emergency gall bladder surgery.

The girl, Rosamaria Hernandez, who was brought over the border illegally to live in Laredo, Tex., when she was three months old, was being transferred from a medical center in Laredo to a hospital in Corpus Christi around 2 a.m. on Tuesday when Border Patrol agents stopped the ambulance she was riding in, her family said. The agents allowed her to continue to Driscoll Children's Hospital, the family said, but followed the ambulance the rest of the way there, then waited outside her room until she was released from the hospital.

By Wednesday evening, according to family members and advocates involved in her case, immigration agents had taken her to a facility in San Antonio where migrant children who arrive alone in the United States from Central America are usually held, even though her parents, who both lack legal status, live 150 miles away in Laredo.

Her placement there highlighted the unusual circumstances of her case: The federal government maintains detention centers for adult immigrants it plans to deport, facilities for families who arrive at the border together, and shelters for children who come by themselves, known as unaccompanied minors. But it is rare, if not unheard-of, for a child already living in the United States to be arrested — particularly one with a serious medical condition.

...Rosamaria's cousin, Aurora Cantu, a United States citizen who was riding with her in the ambulance and accompanied her to the hospital, told Rosamaria's mother and others working on the case that the agents had at first tried to persuade the family to agree to have the girl transferred to a Mexican hospital, pressing the family to sign a voluntary departure form for her. They declined to do so. The entire time Rosamaria was in surgery and then in recovery, several armed Border Patrol agents stood outside her hospital room, the family said.

A few thoughts:

1. I would love to hear Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) explain to me how removing Rosamaria Hernandez from the country will keep me safer. What threat did this 10-year-old child, who was brought here by her parents in search of better treatment for her cerebral palsy, pose to me or to anyone else in the United States?

2. I would like to see an accounting from CBP and DHS of how much this operation cost taxpayers.

3. I want to know how CBP even knew that Rosamaria was being transferred by ambulance at 2 a.m. Did someone at one of the hospitals tip them off?

4. Fuck this dehumanizing, cruel, obscene treatment of human beings, just because they lack a piece of fucking paper.

5. I take up space in solidarity with Rosamaria Hernandez and her family, as part of an immigrant family, as a member of the resistance against this administration and its disgusting immigration policies, and as a person who cares about other people.

[H/T to Shaker SKM.]