Complaint filed with OIG for deported family of girl with brain tumor

This 10-year-old girl, a U.S. citizen, is seen in an undated photo at a Houston area hospital receiving treatment for a brain tumor. She was deported in February 2025 to Mexico along with her family at the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge. (Courtesy of Texas Civil Rights Project)

Following the Trump administration’s dismantling of a federal civil rights office, the Texas Civil Rights Project, or TCRP, has filed a complaint on behalf of a family that includes four U.S. citizens who were removed from the U.S. in February.

The TCRP filed the complaint Wednesday with the Office of Inspector General on behalf of María and Juan Hernández García and five of their children who were stopped at the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Sarita while taking their daughter, who is recovering from a brain tumor, to Houston for emergency medical care.

Their names have been changed to protect their identities as they are currently somewhere in Mexico, where organized crime and violence is prevalent. “The filing comes as a result of the Trump administration’s closure of the Department of Homeland Security’s office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties,” a news release stated.

The Associated Press reported in late March that DHS was cutting three offices that oversee civil rights protection because authorities believe they impede immigration enforcement.

“The family, including 5 of their children, 4 of whom are U.S. citizens, are now in Mexico, unable to receive medical care for their daughter who is recovering from a brain tumor,” the release stated. “The organization is urging the … Department of Homeland Security to return the family to the United States under humanitarian parole.”

The TCRP said the family has lived in the Valley for more than a decade, pays taxes and says their children were involved in activities.

“In 2024, it was discovered that one of their daughters (a U.S. citizen) was diagnosed with a brain tumor, while another of their children is living with a serious heart condition,” the release stated. “This required the Hernández García family to make the risky journey across immigration checkpoints frequently, but in previous trips, the letters from their doctors and lawyers sufficed.”

The TCRP also alleges in the complaint that the family was degraded in detention and endured unnecessarily invasive searches of the children.

“Agents even repeatedly attempted to take the children’s medicine from them despite the children explaining its purpose,” the release stated.

The TCRP said the parents were given a choice: let their children remain in the United States in government custody or have them removed from the country alongside them.

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