An immigration judge granted bond Thursday to a 26-year-old Salvadoran woman seeking asylum in the United States, allowing her to leave an immigration detention facility to seek treatment for a brain tumor.
Sara Beltran Hernandez's family in New York posted her $15,000 bond after the hearing and she will be released by the end of the day from the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, south of Fort Worth, an Amnesty International official said. She has been held in the detention center since November 2015.
"She's going to get medical treatment hopefully in New York. She might get checked out here first to make sure she's OK to travel. Then she'll be treated there," Beltran Hernandez's lawyer, Fatma Marouf, said after the hearing in Dallas.
Beltran Hernandez has been seeking asylum in the U.S. for almost a year and a half, saying she can't return to El Salvador because of the risk of domestic violence and threats of gang violence specific to her family. Beltran Hernandez has two small children in El Salvador who would be allowed to join her if she is granted asylum.
Chris Hamilton, a Dallas-area attorney initially involved in the effort to free Beltran Hernandez, said last month she complaind about headaches, nosebleeds and memory loss before she collapsed on Feb. 10. She was transported to Texas Huguley Hospital where she was diagnosed with a brain tumor that requires surgery.
Her attorneys have said they had trouble visiting her and had difficulty reaching her by phone. Immigration and Custom Enforcement officials have said she was able to speak by phone with her family and her attorney of record while at the hospital.
Hamilton claims Beltran Hernandez was forceibly removed from the hospital after two weeks. A spokesperson for ICE said Beltran Hernandez was discharged from the hospital and was returned to the detention center.
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Beltran Hernandez had sought a conditional release to have more control over her medical care. She has already been denied bond twice.
Marouf said a specialist Monday confirmed that Beltran Hernandez has a large tumor on her pituitary gland. She said it was determined to not be cancerous and did not need to be immediately removed.
Marouf said the doctor recommended that the woman be monitored because the tumor had hemorrhaged and that she return for scans every six weeks. She and the other attorneys said they were concerned that the necessary level of monitoring was not being done at the detention center's medical facility.
"I think she is just trying to absorb it all. I think she's going to be overwhelmingly happy to be with her family again. She really cries because she misses her family a lot," Marouf said.
The release comes after a campaign by Amnesty International, which mobilized members across the country to call ICE and ask for her to be set free.
“Sara and her family are overjoyed that she will finally be able to be with her loved ones and receive medical care after being unjustly detained for over 400 days,” said Eric Ferrero of Amnesty International USA. “Sara never should have been held for so long in the first place, let alone with a medical issue. It is unconscionable to treat people fleeing violence and danger as if they are criminals. Applying for asylum should not mean giving up one’s human rights in the process.”
Beltran-Hernandez’s release will allow her to reside with her family in New York City while her asylum claim is processed.
