18-month old on life-saving medication returned to ICE detention

An 18-month-old baby girl fighting for every breath was rushed to hospital with life-threatening respiratory failure - then sent straight back to a Texas immigration detention centre without the medicine doctors said could save her life.

Amalia, a toddler held with her parents at the remote Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas, spent days on oxygen in intensive care before beginning to recover. But according to a federal lawsuit filed Friday, her ordeal was far from over.

Instead of being allowed to rest and heal, immigration officers returned the medically fragile child to detention.

There, staff allegedly confiscated her nebuliser, albuterol and nutritional supplements that doctors had prescribed to keep her alive.

Her parents were then forced to queue for hours outdoors to request basic medicine.

Lawyers say Amalia had been healthy before her family was arrested in El Paso in December and transferred to the facility, described by advocates as prison-like and dangerous for young children.

Her condition quickly deteriorated.

On January 18, she was taken to a children’s hospital in San Antonio, where doctors treated her for pneumonia, Covid-19, RSV and severe respiratory distress.

Medical experts later warned that sending her back to detention left her highly vulnerable to reinfection and further collapse.

Elora Mukherjee, a Columbia Law School professor and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, filed an emergency court petition after repeated pleas for the family’s release were ignored.

The urgency grew after two measles cases were confirmed inside the centre.

Doctors who reviewed Amalia’s records submitted sworn statements saying detention posed an 'extreme danger' to the toddler’s life.

Only after lawyers filed an emergency habeas corpus challenge in federal court was the family released.

Hours later, on Friday evening, Amalia and her parents walked free.