Boy with leukemia held in immigration detention
"This is a family that did everything right," Elora Mukherjee, a lawyer for the family and director of Columbia Law School's Immigrants' Rights Clinic, said. The family, who isn't identified in court records due to threats they face in Honduras, hasn't been accused of crimes anywhere, she said. "To subject this family -- with a 6-year-old who has a leukemia diagnosis -- to arrest and detention is illegal, unconstitutional and unconscionable."
Arrested after case dismissed
A DHS spokesperson said in a June 28 statement that most migrants who entered the country within the last two years, while Joe Biden was president, are subject to expedited removal.
The Honduran family entered the United States in October through the CBP One App, which allowed migrants to apply for asylum screening interviews at the border, according to court filings. President Donald Trump's administration repurposed the app for migrants to leave the country.
The family lived with the children's grandmother in the Los Angeles area, where they attended school and church, filings said. The boy, diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at age 3, had, most recently, been undergoing two-and-a-half years of chemotherapy. He has about half a year of treatment left.
Biden-era policies limited civil immigration enforcement in courthouses, among other sensitive locations.
Soon after Trump took office, senior administration officials rescinded the policy, allowing agents to detain people, including family members, for civil immigration violations at courthouses. A May 27 Immigration and Customs Enforcement memorandum removed language about agents needing to abide by local or state laws, lawyers for the family said.
Different approach: ICE agents deploy new tactic: arresting people as they leave mandatory court hearings
Two days after the May 27 memo, the Honduran family attended a regular removal hearing at the Van Nuys Boulevard Immigration Court in Los Angeles. They were told to bring the entire family on May 29, said family lawyer Kate Gibson Kumar, of the legal advocacy organization Texas Civil Rights Project.
At the hearing, government lawyers moved to dismiss removal proceedings against the family, which would have allowed them to stay in the United States until their case is resolved. Family lawyers said the mother pleaded not to have the case dismissed, but the immigration judge approved the motion.
Immediately afterward, agents arrested them in the hallway outside.
Dismissing then detaining
Mukherjee, a Columbia Law professor, said DHS lawyers and immigration judges, who are part of the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review, have coordinated their efforts to remove migrants from the country. Since May, she said judges have quickly dismissed migrants' cases enabling ICE to detain them as they leave the courtroom or building.
The advocacy group American Immigration Lawyers Association told the USA TODAY Network that its members have noticed some judges receive information beforehand from DHS lawyers about which deportation cases they plan to ask judges to dismiss. Immigration judges face repercussions for not cooperating, the association said.
The family was held for hours in the courthouse and at an ICE processing center, Mukherjee said. While at the processing center for around 11 hours, the boy got scared when he saw an agent's gun. The boy apparently peed on himself, and then was required to sit in his wet clothing for hours.
Officials later flew the family to Texas, where the three have been held for more than a month at the South Texas Family Residential Center. The privately run detention facility recently reopened after being closed during the Biden administration.
Since arriving in Texas, the mother said her son has lost his appetite and looks pale. He bruises easily and suffers occasional bone pain. These are recognized symptoms of leukemia, lawyers said.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of public affairs at DHS, said the family chose to appeal their case, and will remain in ICE custody until the case is resolved. But through that time, the boy has received appropriate care.
"The implication that ICE would deny a child the medical care they need is flatly FALSE, and it is an insult to the men and women of federal law enforcement," she said in a statement.
In a letter submitted to the court, Dr. Pran Saha, a Columbia University professor of pediatrics, said the boy's medical records show he needs ongoing treatment with radiation and chemotherapy.
Eduardo Cuevas is based in New York City. Reach him by email at emcuevas1@usatoday.com or on Signal at emcuevas.01.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
42 minutes ago
- The Sun
Labour are inflicting open borders on us and pretty soon Britain will not be a country any more
A COUNTRY without secure borders and a national identity is not a country at all. It is just a land mass inhabited by disconnected groups, devoid of shared values or even a common language. 2 2 Tragically, that is the path that Britain is now following. Obsessed with cultural diversity, contemptuous of our heritage and seduced by the myth that prosperity can be achieved by the import of cheap labour, the political class opened the floodgates and transformed the fabric of our society, leaving many British citizens feeling like aliens in their own land. Only this week, official statistics revealed that a third of all babies now born in Britain are to foreign mothers. This has been a revolution imposed without any democratic mandate. Miserably inept Neither of the two main parties ever stood on a platform of open borders and immigration anarchy. But that is precisely what the politicians have inflicted upon us. In the Brexit referendum of 2016, the electorate voted decisively to take back control. Instead the number of new arrivals has continued to spiral out of control as the chaos of the immigration system worsens and our rulers remain impotent. The depressing reality of the current shambles was spelt out yesterday in a report by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee into the Skilled Worker Visa, expanded by the last Tory government in 2022 to tackle labour shortages. The Committee was scathing about the management of the scheme, which had led to an influx of 1.2million people over the past four years, three times more than the Home Office had anticipated. Vile 'people smuggler' herds migrants onto small boat with a stick as packed dinghy evades French cops AGAIN According to the damning report, this department had failed to gather 'basic information' on whether migrants had left the country when their visas expired. Officials had shown 'little curiosity about how the route was operating' and since 2020 had refused to conduct any analysis of the data they held on this type of visa. The Home Office is clueless about the number of over-stayers here, just as it has no idea how many illegal immigrants there are in Britain. After a wave of immigration scandals in 2006, the tough-minded Home Secretary John Reid famously described his department as 'not fit for purpose'. Those words are even more appropriate, as the department limps from one controversy to another, too gripped by incompetence and dogma to change course. The Labour Government has been just as miserably inept over the small boats crossing the Channel. Starmer's promise Sir Keir Starmer came to power last year promising to 'smash the gangs' of people smugglers, but all he has smashed are the records for the size of the influx. So far 20,000 people have made the journey to England in 2025, a 50 per cent rise on 2024 and easily the highest total for the first half of any year. All Labour's measures — such as ever- greater payments for the French police or the creation of new bureaucratic agencies — have proved predictably futile. Yesterday the BBC was exulting over the action of the French in stopping one dinghy by slashing its hull in shallow waters — which proves that the authorities there can act if they really want to. But at the same time, another five boats made it across the Channel. The shocking dysfunction of the authorities was also highlighted in an investigation by this newspaper into the creation of a secret kitchen, complete with delivery teams, at the taxpayer-funded Cedar Court asylum hotel in Wakefield. This hotel belongs to the Monaco-based EC4 Group, which is set to make an astonishing £2.5billion from the public purse over the next ten years through the provision of accommodation for asylum-seekers. But having received such colossal sums, the hotel is not meant to sublet its premises for burger production or seemingly employ its subsidised residents, who, under current asylum rules, are prohibited from working. Yet the whole creaking immigration structure is riddled with abuses, which is why it is so easy to exploit. Vast burdens The Sun reported this week that a group of migrant delivery riders, staying at the taxpayers' expense at the Thistle City Barbican hotel in London, were arrested in a raid by immigration officers. Yet within 24 hours they were back on their delivery bikes. The unfairness of the system is glaring. Illegal migrants who have broken the law to reach our shores are treated with a lavish, state-organised generosity that is denied to most law-abiding Brits, who have to pay for the whole racket through their taxes, with the costs now standing at £5million a day. This is just part of a massive welfare bill for migration, where it is estimated that almost £1billion a month is spent on Universal Credit for households with at least one foreign national. In addition, there are the vast burdens imposed by uncontrolled migration on the NHS, policing, housing and other parts of our civic infrastructure. But there is little hope of change under Labour. All their political instincts are in favour of free movement. And so the disturbing transformation of our country — for which we never voted — will continue.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
US judge briefly pauses deportation of 8 migrants to South Sudan
July 4 (Reuters) - A federal judge briefly halted the Trump administration on Friday from placing eight migrants on a plane destined for conflict-ridden South Sudan, to give the men time to make their argument to a court in Massachusetts. U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington issued the order less than 24 hours after the Supreme Court clarified that a federal judge in Boston could no longer require U.S. Department of Homeland Security to keep custody of the men, who the administration has kept for six weeks on a military base in Djibouti rather than bring back to the United States. The order stops the U.S. government from moving the men until 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time. They were scheduled to be removed to South Sudan on a 7 p.m. flight. South Sudan has long been dangerous even for locals. The U.S. State Department advises citizens not to travel there due to violent crime and armed conflict. The United Nations has said the African country's political crisis could reignite a brutal civil war that ended in 2018. The eight men, who their lawyers said are from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Burma, Sudan and Vietnam, filed a new legal challenge to their deportation late Thursday after the Supreme Court ruled.
The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
Law enforcement issues ‘lone wolf' July 4 attacks warning
The Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have issued a warning about 'lone wolf' attacks on the Fourth of July, according to reports. The agencies issued a joint bulletin in late June warning the public to stay vigilant, particularly if attending major July 4 celebrations, such as the Macy's fireworks display in New York City, according to an assessment obtained by CNN. Potential attackers could be motivated by the Israel–Palestine war, the agencies reportedly said. 'The most significant terrorism threat facing the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks stems from lone offenders and small groups of individuals seeking to commit acts of violence,' the agencies said in the Joint Special Event Threat Assessment, according to the network. 'Most attackers motivated at least in part by the Israel-HAMAS conflict have selected targets with a symbolic link to Israel, houses of worship, or locations associated with houses of worship.' 'Individuals with grievances linked to the conflict could also perceive large gatherings, such as Independence Day celebrations, as opportunistic targets symbolic of the West in general,' it continued. While it is not unusual for law enforcement to issue threat assessments and warnings before major events and holidays, recent high-profile events have prompted 'additional concern,' CNN reports. 'Special events with high attendance and media coverage … remain attractive targets' for those who may want to 'cause mass casualties or draw attention to their causes,' the bulletin added. The bulletin said the agencies were 'concerned' about the potential threat of 'copycat attacks inspired by the 2025 New Year's Day vehicle-ramming attack in New Orleans' and foreign terrorist organizations who call for attacks against the West. On January 1, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a truck into a crowd of revellers on Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring at least 30 others. The agencies also highlighted last month's attack in Boulder, Colorado, in the threat assessment. Mohamed Sabry Soliman has been charged with a federal hate crime and state counts of attempted murder after allegedly launching a firebombing attack on a group demonstrating for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza. The DHS and FBI also warned of drones, which it said 'may pose a hazard to participants and attendees, delay events, and disrupt law enforcement.' There were 'no credible' reports of drones being used to target the Macy's firework show in New York, the agencies said, but they assessed there was some 'potential to increase public safety risks.' 'While we cannot on any specific product, the FBI regularly shares information with our law enforcement partners to assist in protecting the communities they serve, as well as with our private sector partners for awareness,' the FBI said in a statement to The Independent. 'The FBI always encourages members of the public to be vigilant and report anything they consider suspicious to law enforcement.' The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
