An undocumented mother and father living in North Brownsville, Texas, were told by their local hospital that their 2-month-old son needed emergency stomach surgery that required them to travel to the only capable nearby facility, Driscoll Children's Hospital, in Corpus Christi, Texas. In order to get to Corpus Christi, Oscar and Irma Sanchez would have had to pass through a Border Patrol checkpoint. But even before they decided to go, a Border Patrol agent showed up at the hospital, likely summoned by a nurse, and told the parents that he would escort them through the checkpoint but arrest them and put them in deportation proceedings afterwards, NPR reports. The Sanchezes agreed to go:
The Border Patrol followed the ambulance, the night of May 24, as it raced to Corpus through desolate ranchland, carrying Oscar, Irma, and tiny Isaac — with an IV in his arm and a tube in his stomach. Once they arrived at Driscoll Children's Hospital, the green-uniformed agents never left the undocumented couple's side. Officers followed the father to the bathroom and the cafeteria and asked the mother to leave the door open when she breast-fed Isaac."Everywhere we went in the hospital," Oscar says, "they followed us." [NPR]
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Is ChatGPT's new search engine OpenAI's Google 'killer'?Talking Point There's a new AI-backed search engine in town. But can it stand up to Google's decades-long hold on internet searches?
-
Crossword: November 5, 2024The Week's daily crossword
-
Sudoku hard: November 5, 2024The Week's daily hard sudoku puzzle
-
Moldova's pro-West president wins 2nd termSpeed Read Maia Sandu beat Alexandr Stoianoglo, despite suspicions of Russia meddling in the election
-
2024 race ends with swing state barnstormingSpeed Read Kamala Harris and Donald Trump held rallies in battlegrounds over the weekend
-
North Korea tests ICBM, readies troops in UkraineSpeed Read Thousands of North Korean troops are likely to join Russian action against Ukraine
-
Women take center stage in campaign finaleSpeed Read Harris and Trump are trading gender attacks in the final days before the election
-
US election: who the billionaires are backingThe Explainer More have endorsed Kamala Harris than Donald Trump, but among the 'ultra-rich' the split is more even
-
Supreme Court allows purge of Virginia voter rollsSpeed Read Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) is purging some 1,600 people from state voter rolls days before the election
-
'Empowered' Steve Bannon released from prisonSpeed Read Bannon was set free a week before Election Day and quickly returned to his right-wing podcast to promote Trump
-
Canada accuses top Modi ally of directing Sikh attacksSpeed Read Indian Home Minister Amit Shah was allegedly behind a campaign of violence and intimidation targeting Sikh separatists
