Immigrant with brain tumor who won release from ICE custody after collapsing receives
Immigrant with brain tumor who won release from ICE custody after collapsing receives deportation notice
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo..._750/tumor.jpg
Sara Beltran-Hernandez collapsed in ICE custody and learned she had a large tumor in her skull. She was
released to her family, but now faces an order to report for deportation.
(Sam Costanza/for New York Daily News)
She collapsed in federal custody, and then learned she has a large tumor in her skull before she won a release to her family in Queens.
In nearly a year of stunning life-altering events, Sara Beltran-Hernandez was grateful for the immigration reprieve that came in March.
Now that reprieve is over and her nightmare is back — in the form of a federal notice ordering her to report to ICE’s New York office for deportation on Sept. 28.
“She’s very worried right now,” her lawyer, Fatma Marouf, told the Daily News on Tuesday. “She’s low-hanging fruit because they know where she is.”
Marouf said before the chilling Immigration and Customs Enforcement notice arrived this month, she believed Beltran-Hernandez was not in immediate danger of removal.
The 27-year-old mom from El Salvador has no criminal history, a pending case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and a large tumor in her pituitary gland causing vision loss and migraines. At some point, she will need surgery.
“I told her, ‘You should be so low on the list. They only have a certain capacity for deportations and somebody with a pending appeal without a criminal history shouldn’t be a priority,’ ” Marouf said. “A few days after that, she gets this notice. I feel I can’t tell my clients that now. Everyone is at risk.
“ICE is very aggressively removing people who were not a priority before,” she added.
Within hours of learning about the deportation notice, Marouf filed a motion on Sept. 6 asking for a stay of deportation, court records confirm.
The court has not yet ruled and Beltran-Hernandez is vulnerable in the meantime. She can’t ask for an emergency stay until she’s in custody, Marouf said.
“We might have to wait until the day of custody, which would be very stressful for her,” Marouf said. “If they already have a flight ready, they could try to deport her that day.”
Beltran-Hernandez was fleeing domestic and gang violence in El Salvador when she was arrested crossing the border into Texas on her way to New York in November 2015.
She’d been in custody more than a year when she collapsed Feb. 11 inside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Tex., officials confirmed.
She was rushed to Texas Health Huguley Hospital in Fort Worth and diagnosed with the tumor. Despite her pain, dizziness and memory loss, she was yanked from her hospital bed on Feb. 22 and returned to Prairieland in a wheelchair. Beltran-Hernandez said she was handcuffed and shackled for the transfer — an allegation ICE officials denied to The News.
“I felt very bad and very humiliated and I would tell myself, ‘My God, when is this going to be over?’ ” Beltran-Hernandez told The News shortly after her flight touched down in Queens in March.
She said there were moments when she wasn’t sure she would make it through the ordeal.
“I believed I was going to die,” she said.
“When they took me out of the hospital they had my hands and feet tied. I didn’t feel good. I would cry. I don’t blame the (agents). They said it was an order and they had to follow it.”
The mother of two was released on a $15,000 bond thanks to an emergency motion from Marouf. The lawyer argued her client needed close medical monitoring and was not a flight risk.
Beltran-Hernandez previously applied for asylum but was ordered deported after a judge denied her request.
In a statement to The News, ICE officials said Beltran-Hernandez was treated fairly and humanely during her time in custody.
Her family is now caring for her in Jamaica, Queens.
“The tumor appears to be growing slowly. It’s been very hard for her. It’s not improving,” Marouf said.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.3490383
