A toddler detained by US immigration authorities ended up in hospital with a life-threatening illness, but was returned to custody and denied medication, a lawsuit claims.
The child, identified simply as Amalia in the legal challenge, was detained along with her parents on 11 December, amid an ongoing deportation drive by Donald Trump‘s administration.
Held at a facility in Dilley, Texas, she reportedly developed a fever of 40C (104F) on New Year’s Day, started vomiting, suffered diarrhoea, and struggled to breathe.
Her parents took her to the facility’s medical clinic eight or nine times, but each time received only basic fever medication, the lawsuit alleges.
By mid-January, she was barely getting enough oxygen, and her blood oxygen levels had plunged to life-threatening lows, the case claims.
Only then was she taken to hospital, where she and her mother were constantly supervised by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the suit says.
It’s alleged that her father had to stay behind, unable to communicate with his wife and daughter.
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She was diagnosed with COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus, viral bronchitis, and pneumonia, and placed on supplemental oxygen, according to the lawsuit.
After 10 days at Methodist Children’s Hospital in San Antonio, she was reportedly returned to the Dilley Facility in the midst of a measles outbreak.
Having lost 10% of her weight, Amalia was given a nebulizer, respiratory medication, and nutritional drinks, but all were seized at the detention centre, the case claims.
So the family was forced to queue in the cold for medication, waiting for hours every day in what’s been called a “pill line”, only to be denied what doctors had prescribed, according to the suit.
The legal challenge was reported by Sky’s US partner, NBC News, which described how medical experts had reviewed Amalia’s case and cautioned against returning her to custody.
One physician warned that the child faced a “high risk for medical decompensation and death”.
But the family was only released on Friday, after an emergency challenge was filed by Elora Mukherjee, a professor at Columbia Law School who leads its Immigrants’ Rights Clinic.
Ms Mukherjee said ICE still had not handed over the toddler’s prescriptions and birth certificate.
She said: “Baby Amalia should never have been detained. She nearly died at Dilley.”
Amalia’s parents, Kheilin Valero Marcano and Stiven Arrieta Prieto, entered the US in 2024 after fleeing their native Venezuela.
Citing political persecution in their homeland, they applied for asylum for themselves and their daughter, who was born in Mexico on the journey north.
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According to the lawsuit, they complied with all requirements, and checked in regularly with immigration authorities. It was during one of these check-ins that they were detained.
Dilley, where they were taken, is more than 500 miles from where they had been living.
Ms Mukherjee called for the release of the hundreds of children and families detained there, warning that they lacked sufficient drinking water, healthy food, education, or proper medical care.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
CoreCivic, the company contracted to run Dilley, referred questions about it to the DHS when approached by NBC.
However, the firm said in a statement that “the health and safety of those entrusted to our care” is its greatest priority.
