Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents forcibly removed an undocumented woman from a Texas hospital after she was refused surgery to remove a brain tumor.
The woman’s relatives in New York fear she could die, a family representative told the NY Daily News on Thursday.
Sara Beltran-Hernandez was detained after traveling from El Salvador to New York without proper documentation in November 2015.
Her Queens-based family members have been working to obtain her release from the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas.
After suffering from severe headaches, nosebleeds and memory loss, doctors at Huguley Hospital in Fort Worth diagnosed her with a brain tumor last week.
She was scheduled for surgery but the hospital notified family members that she was removed from the surgery schedule.
“ICE was preparing paper work to get her back to the detention center,” Zuniga told the Daily News.
Frantic family members worked the phones trying to find someone to stop her deportation.
“We’ve tried calling everyone. We’ve called the White House, we tried calling Mayor de Blasio, we tried calling [former President] Obama, we’ve tried calling senators,” Zuniga said.
Beltran-Hernandez is listed as “in custody” at the detention center as of early Thursday, according to the ICE website.
“ICE reached out to the family to explain the process,” an ICE spokeswoman said.
President Donald Trump is expected to sign a new immigration executive order next week.
