10-Year-Old Girl With Cerebral Palsy Detained by Border Patrol After Surgery

Rosa Maria Hernandez, a 10-year-old undocumented immigrant who has cerebral palsy, is facing deportation after going through a Border Patrol checkpoint on her way to get emergency surgery.

Border Patrol agents allowed Hernandez and her cousin, a U.S. citizen, to pass through the checkpoint, but followed them to the hospital. Following the surgery, Hernandez was taken to a federal facility for unaccompanied minors in the U.S. illegally where she will remain indefinitely.

Rosa Maria Hernandez does not deserve to treated like a criminal. Please sign this petition demanding that she be released from the facility and allowed to stay in the U.S.

With Trump now in the White House, hospitals are no longer considered sensitive locations, or places off-limits to immigration officers, as they were under President Obama. Hernandez’s experience illustrates why hospitals should remain sensitive locations. Nobody should be worried about facing deportation while receiving life-saving medical attention.

Hernandez’s parents brought her to the U.S. when she was a newborn in hopes of getting better medical treatment for her cerebral palsy. This is the only home she has ever known.

We need to stand with Rosa Maria Hernandez and stop her from being treated like a dangerous criminal. Please sign this petition demanding that she be released and allowed to remain in the U.S.