The pressure exerted by the community managed to save a Guatemalan deportation that gave birth in a hospital shortly after crossing Arizona’s desert, which is one of the first victories against the hard immigration policy of the president of the United States, Donald Trump.
The rapid response of immigrants and community defenders in Tucson (Arizona) was essential for the migrant, identified only as Erika, and her newborn baby were released by the Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP, in English) this weekend, after protests.
“It is an abomination that Trump’s government would have intended to try to deport a woman with her son, it is a crime to humanity,” Lenzy Hernández, one of the dozens of people who were present on the outskirts of the hospital this Saturday to protest to protest told Efe.
As a daughter of migrants, the protester claims to feel a lot of anger that Trump has even threatened to remove the right to citizens to the children of undocumented migrants like her.
Erika’s case was announced after immigration lawyer Luis Campos denounced the danger that ran from being quickly deported to Guatemala without having the right to due process to present his case.
The lawyer told Efe that the family contacted him from Guatemala to ask him to represent her, but initially CBP agents prevented access.
“Migration officers were guarding their door in the hospital. When I tried to see her the first time, they denied me the entrance; they didn’t even let me talk to her on the phone,” he deepened.
The lawyer came to qualify the actions of the CBP as “a kidnapping”, so he decided to summon the community to help him avoid the accelerated expulsion of the Guatemalan. Dozens responded to the call in front of the hospital and Miles replicated the case on social networks.
The immigrant crossed the Arizona border with Mexico last week. After several days of walking through the desert, she was arrested by the border patrol and taken to a detention center.
He started with labor last Wednesday, so she was transported to the hospital, where she gave birth that same day at night a girl.
She came to this country fleeing a threat of death against her in Guatemala, hoping to obtain asylum, said Campos.
Less than a dozen
After swearing for the second time as president of the United States, Trump signed an executive order that limits that migrants can request asylum after crossing the border.
The hard policy has reduced to historical minimums the entry of undocumented by the border.
Since last January, only nine immigrants have been allowed: four of them are essential witnesses in a criminal investigation, another four were allowed to admit due to their medical conditions and one more for humanitarian reasons, according to figures given by the White House.
Campos says that the Guatemalan immigrant does not have any criminal record and has not been previously deported, so “she is a good candidate to request asylum.”
Erika was released with her daughter and received an order to appear before a migration judge, so she will have the opportunity to present her case.
But other mothers of American citizens have not run with the same fate.
Hondurans Jenny Carolina López-Villela and Reachel Alexas Morales-Valle were deported at the end of April with their children born in the United States.
A spokesman from the National Security Department told Efe that “both mothers decided to be deported with their children.”
The migrants, both Hondurans, had lost their cases in the immigration courts and every opportunity, according to the Trump government. The victory in the case of Erika is shown as a small hope for the defenders of the migrants, who will have this month a great battle in the Supreme Court, when the case is heard against Trump’s executive order that eliminates the right to citizens by birth of the children of undocumented immigrants.