The Government Deported a Child with Brain Cancer
I wish I was joking, but this is the hell we are living in.
I wish I didn't have to write this article. Quite frankly, I am not sure what circle of hell I am in to be writing it, but alas, here we are. On Wednesday, NBC News' Nicole Acevedo reported that a mixed-status family was deported, along with their children. One of them is a young girl recovering from brain cancer who was on her way to an emergency checkup and now resides in Mexico despite being a citizen.
The cruelty is the point
Generally speaking, cruelty coming out of the Trump administration shouldn't surprise anyone. However, it takes a special amount of cruelty to ignore the condition of a child with cancer and send her to a country she doesn't belong to, but that is exactly what the Trump administration has done.
As NBC explains:
"A family that was deported to Mexico hopes they can find a way to return to the U.S. and ensure their 10-year-old daughter, who is a U.S. citizen, can continue her brain cancer treatment.
Immigration authorities removed the girl and four of her American siblings from Texas on Feb. 4, when they deported their undocumented parents.
The family’s ordeal began last month, when they were rushing from Rio Grande, where they lived, to Houston, where their daughter’s specialist doctors are based, for an emergency medical checkup. The parents had done the trip at least five other times in the past, passing through an immigration checkpoint every time without any issues, according to attorney Danny Woodward from the Texas Civil Rights Project, a legal advocacy and litigation organization representing the family. In previous occasions, the parents showed letters from their doctors and lawyers to the officers at the checkpoint to get through.
But in early February, the letters weren’t enough. When they stopped at the checkpoint, they were arrested after the parents were unable to show legal immigration documentation. The mother, who spoke exclusively to NBC News, said she tried explaining her daughter’s circumstances to the officers, but “they weren’t interested in hearing that.”
Other than lacking “valid immigration status in the U.S.,” the parents have “no criminal history,” Woodward said."
The article goes on to explain that the young girl, who is now in an area of Mexico known for kidnapping Americans, was diagnosed with cancer last year. She underwent surgery and was recovering but still suffers from some brain swelling. Thanks to the Trump administration's border Czar, Tom Homan, entire families can be deported, leaving parents with an impossible choice. If they don't have power of attorney, they risk their children going into the foster care system and potentially losing custody of their children for good.
Nor was the 10-year-old girl the only one in the family suffering from health complications. Their 15-year-old son also suffers from Long QT Syndrome, which causes rapid and erratic heartbeats and has also not received the care he needs now that he is in Mexico. This policy is unacceptable.
If the law is cruel, change it
Only a sick and twisted society can allow such an event to occur. The sick and suffering, especially when they are children, should be granted the most basic right: the right to treatment against deadly and harmful ailments. Rather than follow through with such basic principles and allow the children to get the care they need, the United States government chose to throw its citizens under the bus in the hopes of getting rid of perceived undesirables.
"When an alien resides with you in your land, do not mistreat such a one. You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among; you shall love the alien as yourself; for you were once aliens in the land of Egypt. I, the Lord, am your God.” -Leviticus 19:33-34.
It is one thing entirely to enforce the law; it is another thing entirely to leave people without the means to protect children from cancer, of all things. If this is what the law requires, then the law must be changed. The law is not some esoteric thing that can be pulled up whenever someone wants to justify the most cruel and unusual actions by the government. The reality is that Trump and his ilk know that this is wrong, but they will pursue it anyway. It is wrong, it is hellish, and it must be rectified.
References
Acevedo, Nicole. 2025. “U.S. Citizen Child Recovering from Brain Cancer Deported to Mexico with Undocumented Parents.” NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/us-citizen-child-recovering-brain-cancer-deported-mexico-undocumented-rcna196049 (March 12, 2025).
Douay-Rheims Bible. 2000. Saint Benedict Press (January 23, 2025). (Original work published 1582). https://www.amazon.com/dp/1935302035?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_DXP0M1FAWZF9WCGTCV67&skipTwisterOG=1&bestFormat=true&newOGT=1