After outcry, 4-year-old girl can stay in U.S. for lifesaving care
It was a routine Vargas had perfected through fear. Missing even one step could mean disaster, she said. But for the first time in months, she felt like she could finally breathe.
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Vargas and her family, who hail from Mexico, could stay in the United States, the only country where her daughter can receive the complex and specialized treatment that keeps her alive. The girl has short bowel syndrome, a condition where the body cannot absorb enough nutrients from food.
The relief that washed over Vargas had come after nearly two excruciating months, she said. In April, the government had abruptly revoked the family's humanitarian parole without giving them a reason. The move triggered swift international outrage and prompted 38 Democratic members of Congress to send a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem urging her to reverse the decision.
Then on Tuesday, Vargas received a notice from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: The family had been granted another year of parole.
'I felt more than tranquility - peace,' Vargas, 28, told The Washington Post. 'These moments of not knowing whether we'd be deported or allowed to stay were beyond overwhelming. It was horrible knowing that my daughter's ability to stay alive depended on this humanitarian parole.'
In a statement Friday, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed the family was approved to stay in the United States.
The agency did not respond to questions about why their parole had been revoked after initially being granted until July. Vargas's attorney, Gina Amato Lough, said the family fit into two categories of people who have seen their status canceled amid the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration: people with parole and those who entered the country through the Biden administration's CBP One app. The Trump administration has also rolled back humanitarian protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants.
The girl, whom the family's lawyers identify by the pseudonym Sofia, was born in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, in fragile health. She had her first surgery at four days old for a malformation in her intestine. Four more surgeries followed, Vargas said, and left the girl with short bowel syndrome.
Soon, the girl was transferred to a hospital nearly 800 miles away in Mexico City. Vargas and her husband uprooted their lives to move close to the facility, which their daughter did not leave for two years.
After two more surgeries and a near-death experience, doctors told Vargas they were running out of options. The only thing left to try was an intestine transplant, which had never been done in that hospital before, Vargas recalled being told.
'They told me my child was most likely going to die,' she said.
Vargas refused to give up hope. She started researching transplants and alternative treatments in Spain and the United States, and contacting hospitals. At the same time, she prepared an application for humanitarian parole, which allows people to temporarily live in the United States for urgent humanitarian reasons.
In 2023, the family boarded a flight to Tijuana from Mexico City. They carried the girl - still connected to nutrition bags - to the border and legally entered the United States through an appointment secured through the CBP One app, Vargas said. They were granted humanitarian parole until July 2025.
The girl arrived in California as an emaciated toddler and was transported to a children's hospital in San Diego. She soon began to thrive under specialized care, Vargas said, including hours tethered to an intravenous feeding system - a machine that pumps nutrients into her through a tube.
Little by little, the child reached milestones - like sitting up and taking her first steps - that to Vargas had once seemed impossibly out of reach. She was transferred to Children's Hospital Los Angeles after a year.
In September, the girl was discharged and allowed to live something close to a normal life: playing in the park, painting with her father and attending day care while Vargas works in a buffet-style restaurant. She loves dancing, especially to 'Mambo No. 5' by Lou Bega.
'She feels the rhythm and starts moving her body,' Vargas said, laughing.
For a while, it felt like the family was moving forward. Then came the April 11 letter from DHS, giving them just seven days before their legal status would be revoked.
'Do not attempt to remain in the United States - the federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately,' read the email, which was reviewed by The Post.
The family received two more such notices. The last one, from May 13, warned Vargas that her work authorization had also been canceled.
'I can't explain the fear,' she said. 'Feeling like any time we were out on the streets someone was going to take us away and deport us.'
Adding to her anxiety, Vargas said, was the fact that her daughter's medical team had said the equipment that keeps the girl alive can't leave the country - and patients on this treatment aren't allowed to travel.
DHS denied in its statement that the family was 'actively being deported.'
Though the family hadn't been placed in removal proceedings or received a final deportation order, Amato Lough said the revocation of their status effectively left them undocumented. The letter the family received from DHS warned: 'If you do not depart the United States immediately you will be subject to potential law enforcement actions that will result in your removal.'
On May 14, Vargas and her family filed another application for humanitarian parole.
Weeks went by without an answer. Then, after the Los Angeles Times reported on the family's situation, USCIS contacted the family to begin scheduling biometrics appointments - a standard, early step in many immigration benefit applications. Days later, the family was told they would have status for a year.
'While we celebrate this victory, we cannot ignore the systemic challenges that brought [the girl] to the brink,' Amato Lough and her co-counsel, Rebecca Brown, said in a statement. 'Her parole was terminated without warning, and for weeks there was no functional avenue to alert USCIS that a child's life was in danger. It took an international outcry and pressure from elected officials to get a response - something that used to take a single phone call.'
In Bakersfield, Vargas rocked her daughter gently this week and whispered reassurances.
'She's so groggy,' she said, as the girl whined. 'But she's going to be okay.'
This time, she believed it.
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