They were a little more than 24 hours. They started with a worrying headache of Sara, 10 years old and in recovery of brain surgery. The fear of possibly fatal convulsions pushed the entire family to the car, which headed from home to Texas Children’s Hospital, in Houston. But they never arrived. Shortly after leaving, a migration road checkpoint at the height of Sarita, Texas, about 130 kilometers from the southern border, ended in an express deportation that deranged their lives. It was the second time that a trip to the hospital in Houston changed everything.
A year earlier, Sara’s first seizure attack precipitated urgent air transfer. Upon arriving at the hospital that time, Maria, her mother, feared being loading the girl’s lifeless body. But emergency surgery managed to remove the tumor that, without being knew, had been growing in the brain of the daughter of undocumented Mexican immigrants born in the United States and, therefore, as four of her five brothers ,.
On February 3, 2025, after just over a day during which the father, the mother and the five children were questioned, humiliated and harassed, and without the urgent medical care they needed, they were deported to Mexico. Engulfed by, and without due process, they left the country with the clothes they brought.
Two weeks after – a fictional surname, as well as the names of the family members, for their protection – the country has had access to a detailed chronology of the facts provided by the Civil Texas Rights Project, the organization that is legally representing them.
The document, prepared from interviews with the family and with acquaintances, in addition to medical and legal records, is part of the complaint they have filed this week against the Department of National Security (DHS). In it, the ill -treatment of DHS personnel and request that they be granted a parole Humanitarian to parents and a sister who is not an American citizen so that they can receive the medical care they need.
The Hernández García family has been living in the United States for more than a decade and has been enlarging birth after birth. They are active and beloved members of their community and their local church. But medical difficulties have always floated on them. Two of the older children, identified as Manuel, 15, and Elizabeth, 13, live with a rare heart rate disorder. It does not prevent them from making a relatively normal life, but they must be under regular medical observation, take medication and Manuel must always carry a heart monitor. It is nothing compared to Sara’s situation. With nine years, the girl began to present seemingly unconnected symptoms – headlines that made her hair pull, her left foot turning slowly, worse school performance – that gave a erroneous diagnosis of autism. Parents never convinced them, and that traumatic day of seizures in which Sara almost dies proved them right.
Sara needs permanent neuro-arcological care while recovering. The process is slow and its brain is still inflamed. You must use a splint in your leg, words are forgotten, the right side of your body is partially paralyzed and must take daily medication to avoid more seizures. In case that happens, their parents always carry an emergency nasal spray. From the surgery, Maria stopped working to be able to take care of her daughter and became more difficult to pay the invoices.
Two months ago, on Texas 77 highway, their concerns multiplied with the beginning of a migratory ordeal. For six eternal hours in a migration control post, which they already knew and had surpassed on a handful of occasions with letters from the doctors in which Sara’s case was explained and their transfer was justified, everything was twisted. The migratory agents doubted the veracity of the letter and ignored the citizenship evidence of children and applications for a V visa – for serious victims of human trafficking – of the parents.
They arrested the whole family, confiscated her and her brothers’ medicines, and warned them that someone would have to go to collect their car. The family called its pastor, who when he arrived attempt and explained to them Sara’s delicate situation. The agents alleged that the girl would need to get a medical visa, ignoring that she is an American citizen. While this was happening, the family remained in a small office next to the road. Sara cried non -stop. He complained about the headache and on the left side of his body.
From there they were transferred to the Donna processing center. When they arrived, several officers began shouting at them and tried to take Sara the support in their leg. Maria managed not to do it. After a new document review, where US citizens of four of the five minors were demonstrated again, were separated by gender, aligned in two rows and physically registered. An agent looked at Manuel’s face, who suffers from acne, and told him that he should masturbate more. And the minor, Vicente, six years old, later asked why an officer had groped the genitals. In the medical check that followed, Maria explained the various conditions of her children and clarified that Elizabeth does not carry the cardiac monitor as her brother because she is not a citizen and has no insurance. A staff man addressed the girl and asked her age. When Elizabeth replied that she has 13, the man said in a mocking tone that she would soon begin to menstruate.
Sara also explained how he almost died and showed his scar in the skull, but the staff laughed and said that scar was too small. At one point, they allowed the girl to take her daily dose of medication, although they were confiscated by the emergency nasal spray.
They spent that night separated into two small, very hot rooms, without windows and with bright permanent white lights. The colchonets for the ground were very dirty and gave them a couple of wet cloths to clean them. When the girls managed to Maldormir, Maria asked to speak with a lawyer, as she knows that it is her right, but the agent told her that if she believed that a lawyer would be available 24 hours.
The next morning they shouted at them and three officers, including the supervisor, agreed with violence and pressed Juan to sign one. Juan refused and asked once again to talk to his lawyer. Agents told him that criminals have no right to talk to a lawyer. Then it was Maria’s turn, which they also threatened to separate her from her children to never see them again or even talk to them. But Maria also refused to sign. When she started crying, they let her call a lawyer, but after three minutes of call with the assistant of her legal representative, they forced her to hang. A few hours later, the episode was repeated almost the same.
Maria spoke briefly with a Mexican consulate officer and told her what had happened. He replied that most likely they were deported. Another agent asked him aggressively why he had risk the lives of his children entering the bushes, hinting that they were. María estimates that she explained her situation from the beginning about 30 times in just over 24 hours to different agents.
Soon, they were announced that they would be sent to Mexico, they were given plastic bags with their few belongings, including the medications, except Sara’s emergency spray, and mounted them in a truck. They were taken to the border crossing of Hidalgo, Texas, and made them cross the bridge.
From that moment, the family trail vanished. The Mexican authorities recommended a safe migrants shelter in Reynosa after warning them that they were a white for kidnapping for the American citizenship of children, they were asked not to go out. There they stayed for five days, until they managed to move home from relatives in a distant rural area of Mexico.
Since then, children have not left property or study or see a doctor. From that remote place, who prefer to keep secret, none of the options that see them. They have no money to pay medical consultations, and since children are not Mexican citizens, they cannot access the public system. To send Sara with a relative or a trusted acquaintance to Houston to continue her treatment is not viable either, because they run the risk that the authorities take the girl, thinking that she is a victim of human trafficking.
The Mexican immigration authorities have told El País that they have sought to the family to offer support, especially a doctor, but they have not been able to locate it. On the American side, there has only been silence.
