The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Oct. 31 on behalf of a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after crossing a checkpoint to receive gallbladder surgery at Corpus Christi, Texas-based Driscoll Children's Hospital Oct. 24.
Immigration officers claim Rosa Maria Hernandez was detained because she had been living in the U.S. without legal permission and was traveling to Driscoll Children's in an ambulance without her parents, among other reasons, according to The Washington Post.
Rosa Maria had been traveling to the hospital to undergo gallbladder surgery after suffering complications from kidney stones. Once she had woken up from surgery and was discharged from the hospital, ICE agents arrested and transferred her to an HHS Administration for Children & Families Office of Refugee Resettlement detainment facility in San Antonio 150-plus miles from her home in Laredo, Texas, according to an ACLU blog post. Rosa Maria's mother previously said she brought Rosa Maria to the U.S. without legal permission when she was 3 months old.
Officials reportedly transferred her to ORR because she was an "unaccompanied minor," the blog post states.
The ACLU contends the Trump administration violated severals laws in Rosa Maria's case, including the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 and the Homeland Security Act of 2002. While the laws allow ICE agents to transfer "unaccompanied children" into the ORR's custody, the ACLU argues both laws define "unaccompanied" children as children who do not have a parent or guardian able to care for them in the U.S. Rosa Maria, however, lives with her parents in Laredo and was with a family member at the time of her detention, according to the blog post.
The organization also argues Rosa Maria's detainment violated both her own and her parents' due process rights guaranteed under the Fifth Amendment. Under the due process clause, government officials may detain individuals if their detention is reasonably related to the government's interests in preventing flight risk or protecting the community from danger. The ACLU argues Rosa Maria is not a flight risk and does not pose any danger.
"Rosa Maria has been taken from the only home that she’s ever known. Because of cerebral palsy, she requires constant, specialized care, which her family is in the best position to provide. Even without developmental delays, most 10-year-olds would be unable to comprehend or process how they went to sleep at a hospital and woke up in the custody of the U.S. government. … Every single day that she remains separated from her family, the nightmare continues," the organization wrote in its blog post.
To read the ACLU's blog post about the case, click here. For more information on Rosa Maria's case, click here.