Girl With Cerebral Palsy Detained by Immigration Officials Cries for Help

Melissa Chan, reporting for Time:

Rosamaria was being rushed to a hospital for emergency gall bladder surgery early Tuesday when she was stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint east of Laredo and detained. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents “escorted” Rosamaria to a Corpus Christi hospital to have her operation, the agency said in a statement. After becoming medically cleared, Rosamaria was taken to a federal facility for refugees in San Antonio on Wednesday and processed, officials said.

“She has been crying. She knows her mom is not there,” Galvez said.

Another story, by Yale senior Viviana Andazola Marquez, writing in The New York Times, “I Accidentally Turned My Dad In to Immigration Services”:

Most people can’t wait to turn 21 so that they can drink. For me, it was the day I could finally petition the government to change my dad’s immigration status. I filed the paperwork in February and believed it would be the beginning of sleeping easier at night, of not worrying about “la migra” every time the phone rang.

Eight months later, my father and I showed up at the immigration services office with our lawyer and notebooks full of supporting documents. The officer told us our petition should be approved, but not that day. We took this as an indication of another waiting period, but we remained upbeat: The officer told my father how to learn about his rights as a lawful permanent resident and acknowledged that he had paid the appropriate fees.

After the officer left the room several times, something changed in her demeanor, and the air in the room became thick with mounting uncertainty. She asked me to leave. I didn’t want to, so she turned to my father and asked him to tell me to leave. I told myself I was just being paranoid and walked outside. As I waited, three Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents came in and took custody of my dad.

When our lawyer reappeared, the look on his face told me everything I needed to know. The world felt ripped from under my feet.

ICE, under Trump, is a terrorist organization.

★ Friday, 27 October 2017