BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – A family in Bakersfield is facing deportation, despite entering the country legally to obtain care for their young daughter.
Lawyers said at a press conference on Wednesday that the 4-year-old girl could die if she left the U.S. because she suffers from short-bowel syndrome.
The disease requires her to wear an adult-sized backpack that delivers nutrients intravenously – 14 hours a day. This life-saving treatment is only available in the U.S.
The girl’s mother, Deysi Vargas, said deportation would jeopardize her daughter’s life
“If we return back to our county, she would be at the hospital day and night,” Vargas said through an interpreter.
Vargas legally entered the U.S. through humanitarian parole. That was under the Biden administration. But as the Trump administration cracks down on migrants, her parole was revoked.
Gina Amato, an attorney with Public Counsel based in Los Angeles, is representing Vargas.
“This case is heartbreaking … but it’s not unique,” she said. “For so many people fleeing violence, persecution or who are dealing with life-threatening illnesses, deportation is a death sentence.”
She says the main goal is to keep Vargas and her daughter in the U.S.
The Trump administration has been pushing to dismantle policies from the Biden administration that allowed for people to live legally in the U.S., generally for two years.
Humanitarian parole, which doesn't put migrants on a path to U.S. citizenship, was widely used during the Biden administration to alleviate pressure on the U.S.-Mexico southern border.
It was previously used on a case-by-case basis to address individual emergencies and also for people fleeing humanitarian crises around the world including Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos during the late 1970s.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
