Lawyers dispute the arrest of immigration, the detention of children treated for cancer

Lawyers argue for the release of immigration detention of a 6 -year -old boy treated for blood cancer and bone marrow, who is detained in Texas with his mother and sister.

The boy, his mother and his 9 -year -old brother, from Honduras, were seized after the three attended their immigration hearing on May 29 in Los Angeles last month. Lawyers say that the family could be expelled in a few days because their asylum attempt in the United States has been interrupted.

Their arrests are part of many people that immigration and customs application have been carried out before the immigration courts to mix more immigrants in an accelerated withdrawal from the country known as accelerated referral. Many are like the mother and her children and were granted legal entry to the United States during the Biden administration.

The Trump administration has ordered judges to reject cases of immigrants Who have been in the country for less than two years, so ice can remove them more quickly from the country.

While lawyers are trying to release the family from detention and obtain medical care for the child with cancer, they also dispute the growing practice of the Trump administration to arrests before the immigration courts. Lawyers believe that this is the first case to contest the use by the administration of this tactic on children.

“A federal district court has already judged that the The arrest policy of the ICE justice palace announced last month is illegal And unconstitutional and I think that applying it to children is particularly odious and inadmissible, “said lawyer Elora Mukherjee, which is part of the team that represents the family.

Last week, several groups deposited a trial contesting the arrest of Oliver Eloy Mata VelasquezOriginally from Venezuela, after her hearing of the immigration court in Buffalo, New York. He also legally entered the country through the CBP process.

In this case, the mother had been responsible for bringing her children, who are not at school, to the immigration hearing, said Kate Gibson Kumar, lawyer for Civil Texas Rights Project who also represents the family.

“They stopped the family in the corridor when they left … The children were really afraid. They were crying,” said Gibson Kumar.

The family was arrested and then taken to an immigration treatment center. The lawyers said that during this period, an agent had raised his shirt as he changed and that one of the children, the 6 -year -old boy saw his weapon. He became frightened and urinated on himself and stayed in the clothes soaked for hours, said Mukherjee.

There was no clothes of the boy’s size until the next morning, when the family was about to be placed on a plane and stole in Dilley, Texas, a detention center near San Antonio, she said.

The 6 -year -old child, identified as NMZ in a Habeas Corpus complaint, was diagnosed in Honduras with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at 3 years old and suffered two of the two years required for and a half treatment, according to the tribunal file. He missed a medical appointment on June 5 because he was in detention.

Because it is sharp, cancer can progress quickly without treatment. It affects blood cells and the immune system. It is considered curable in most children.

However, lawyers have said that detention could be wreaking havoc on the health of children. Gibson Kumar said that children are really afraid, cry daily and barely eat.

Mukherjee said that during her family visit earlier this week, the young woman of 6 Symptoms known to his cancer.

“He has easy bruises. … His right leg had a lot of marks in black and blue on it, his left leg had black and blue marks on it, he had black and blue marks on his arms. He sometimes has bone pain, he has lost his appetite. They are all things about things,” said Mukherjee.

In an email, spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said that “the minor child had not suffered chemotherapy for more than a year, and has been seen regularly by medical staff since his arrival” in Dilley.

McLaughlin said that individuals held are at no time that emergency care and any involvement that ice refuses a child of the necessary medical care is “categorically false” and “an insult to federal law enforcement agents”.

“Ice always favors the health, safety and well-being of all prisoners under its care,” said McLaughlin.

Children’s diseases held in Dilley in recent years, as well as the death of a young child in 2018 after their release from Dilley Raised concerns about previous medical care for children confined there.

The family was released in the United States on October 26 via the CBP One application. They fled Honduras after being subjected to “imminent and threatening death threats”, according to the Habeas Corpus petition.

Once in the country, the American government determined that they were not a risk of theft and not a danger to the community. The mother was not put on an electronic instructor. The DHS gave them a notice of appearance at the court hearing on May 29 to continue their humanitarian aid requests, said Mukherjee.

Lawyers called for dismissal to the board of directors of the Immigration Council, which is part of the Ministry of Justice. McLaughlin said that because the family has “chosen to call on their case – who had already been thrown by an immigration judge” – the mother and the children will remain in police custody until the case is resolved.

Lawyers said the family was deeply rooted in their community. The children attended a local public school which focused on the arts and had made friends. The 6 -year -old loved playing football in the local park. The family attended the church every Sunday and they learned English, they said.

“It is this family who literally tried to do everything correctly and the forced disappearances of so many of our neighbors and members of the community, in particular those who respect the laws, should shock us all,” said Mukherjee.

Lawyers argue that the administration illegally placed the mother and children in accelerated moving and should at least offer them a chance of surety.

The family must be in what is considered to be a complete recovery procedure, which provides a long -term process in several longer steps leading to an opportunity for testing where they could submit evidence supporting their complaint and current witnesses, said Mukherjee.

“As the DHS determined when he put them on parole in the United States, the family is not a risk of theft and it is not a danger to the community,” said lawyers in the Habeas Corpus petition, adding that their detention is not settled. “Consequently, the family is held in violation of their constitutional right to a regular procedure under the fifth amendment, and they should be released immediately.”

On June 21, the government conducted a credible interview for fear – to determine if they fear persecution, damage or death if they had returned to Honduras – but Mukherjee said that it was not informed of the hearing. Mukherjee said it happened even if Ice was well aware that she and others represented the family.

“There are extremely concerns and serious concerns concerning the government illegally subjecting them to a credible interview for fear and denying the possibility of having online advice, when the DHS has been in opinion for weeks that I represent the family,” said Mukherjee.