NBC news reported:
Each year, the U.S. gets about 1,000 applications from immigrant families in the U.S. seeking permission to stay in the country and not face deportation so family members can continue lifesaving medical care that is not available in their home countries.
But the Trump administration recently told families who were granted permission to stay for medical care that their permission to stay has been rescinded and they have 33 days to leave the country. The policy, which was not publicly announced, is being applied retroactively to any requests filed on or before Aug. 7.
In a conference call Thursday with reporters, advocates and Democrats expressed outrage over the rule.
“Kids with cancer, cystic fibrosis, and muscular dystrophy are now being told that they must leave the country or be put in the hands of ICE,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass), who joined other Massachusetts politicians at a Monday press conference denouncing USCIS’s decision.
“These patients could be facing a de facto death sentence,” Markey added, noting that USCIS was “too ashamed” to publicly announce the policy change until inquiries from the press. “This is a new low, even for Donald Trump. This administration is now literally deporting kids with cancer.”
Among those facing deportation is Jonathan Sanchez, 16, who has cystic fibrosis.
His mother, Mariela Sanchez, told NBC 10 in Boston that her family arrived in the United States in 2016 and she had recently applied for the medical exemption. After losing a daughter to the hereditary and incurable disease because doctors in Honduras did not diagnose it, she knows what would have happened to her son if he was not getting the care in the U.S.
“He would be dead,” she told the station.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) cited the case of a Brazilian five-year-old with a rare medical condition that prevents him from eating solid food. The boy, Pressley said, came to the U.S. on a visitor visa for treatment, and now faces returning to a country where treatment for his condition doesn’t exist.
“He won’t be able to receive the life-supporting nutrients that he needs to live,” Pressley said, calling the removal of people like him “a death sentence.”
“All of our families have struggled with such things,” Pressley said. “Imagine on top of that facing deportation on top of a cancer diagnosis.”
“There’s no better proof of the cruelty of Donald Trump’s war on immigrants... than to kick kids with cancer out of their hospital beds,” said Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), who called the deferred action program “a commonsense policy that was only utilized by about 1,000 individuals each year. That is not a large population, but it is a vulnerable one.”
Although Pressley vowed to push for a review of the policy change by the House Oversight Committee and legal advocates are preparing to challenge the policy in court, Khamgaonkar and others seeking deferred action may soon be out of time. The letters received by those whose deferred action petitions were rejected require recipients to leave the country within 33 days.
My additional commentary is that this is very inhumane and I hope daily kos readers contact their reps to oppose this immoral action.