Trump Administration Wants to Deport Gravely Ill Migrant Kids

In what may be a new low on the inhumanity scale when it comes to the Trump administration’s fervent pursuit of anti-immigrant policies, it has quietly and unexpectedly informed families of kids with cancer and other grave conditions that they face deportation because it is ending the federal “medical deferred action” program.

The program has allowed undocumented immigrants to stay in the U.S. without threat of deportation for needed medical treatment that might not be offered in their home country. The administration’s actions were first revealed by Boston’s WBUR News and followed up in the Boston Globe, among others.

According to WBUR News, some of the immigrants’ lawyers began receiving letters from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) denying their renewal requests and giving the ill immigrants 33 days to depart the U.S. or face “removal proceedings.” Advocates said they did not receive any formal announcement. Similar letters reportedly have been received by families in the San Francisco Bay Area and Miami, The New York Times reported.

For its part, USCIS, after some confusion, confirmed the program is ending, saying it is necessary as field offices “focus agency resources on faithfully administering our nation’s lawful immigration system.”

A Boston Globe editorial headline summed it up thusly: “Can the Trump administration sink any lower than threatening to deport sick kids?” It continued:

Step by malicious step, the Trump administration is turning the immigration system into an apparatus of appalling intentional cruelty.

The latest case in point is a relatively small program known as “medical deferred action” in which immigrants without legal status who are suffering from serious medical conditions are granted a reprieve from deportation so they can have access to much needed medical treatment in the United States.

Trump halted the program this month, threatening to deport these patients, including children with leukemia, children with muscular dystrophy, children with cystic fibrosis. The program`s termination means suspending or interrupting the children`s medical care, which in some cases is virtually a death sentence.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and the Times have highlighted the case of 24-year-old Maria Isabel Bueso, who was recruited at age 7 to come to the United States from her home country of Guatemala to take part in a clinical trial for the treatment of her rare genetic disease, an enzyme disorder that inhibits cells from processing sugars. Her participation led to the approval of medication for the condition, which has increased survival rates by more than a decade. Bueso has won awards for her patient advocacy efforts and her parents pay for her treatment through private medical insurance, but she nonetheless received a letter threatening deportation.

“I have been feeling super scared and overwhelmed,” Bueso, whose lower body is paralyzed from the disease, told the Times. “The treatment that I receive keeps me alive.”

Since the beginning of his campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump has cast undocumented immigrants as drug smugglers and rapists as well as “bad hombres,” and dismissed those seeking asylum at the U.S. southern border as “an invasion of our country.” These sentiments are reflected in the shocking number of anti-immigrant policies enacted over the last 30-plus months by the Trump administration, inflicting misery on undocumented families as children and law-abiding mothers and fathers have been separated, detained and/or deported.

However, this particular action is seen as particularly heinous. As Sen. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, bluntly summed up, it’s an attempt to “terrorize sick kids with cancer who are literally fighting for their lives.”

WBUR News reports that on Friday, more than 100 members of Congress, led by Markey and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, sent a letter to the acting chiefs of U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Immigration and Customs Enforcement urging the Trump administration to reinstate the program.

The lawmakers state: “These summary denials have understandably caused anguish and fear for families whose children and other loved ones are in the United States receiving treatment for potentially fatal diseases, and who might not be able to receive life-saving treatment elsewhere. According to agency estimates, USCIS receives approximately 1,000 deferred action requests annually.” The letter gives the administration until Sept. 13 to provide details about the decision to end the program.