Immigrant detainee pleads with ICE to let her have surgery
QWER
An immigrant held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for almost four months needs surgery to relieve intense abdominal pain and determine if she has cancer, her attorneys say.
ICE arrested Andrea Pedro-Francisco on Feb. 5 during immigration enforcement sweeps in the Minneapolis area.
Pedro-Francisco, 23, is a house cleaner from Guatemala who came to the U.S. in 2019 where she had been living without legal status, according to ICE.
Her arrest occurred five days before she was scheduled to have surgery to remove a golf-ball sized ovarian cyst and have it checked for cancer.
ICE first sent her to Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, a for-profit detention center operating under a government contract.
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Since it opened a year ago, Scripps News has documented complaints about lack of health care and other conditions inside Camp East Montana, a complex of tent-like structures quickly stood up on the Fort Bliss Army post last summer.
While there, Pedro-Francisco saw medical staff seven times and went to the emergency room once, according to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, but she never received the surgery her doctor ordered.
Her condition has worsened because she has still not received the surgery that is needed, that is urgently needed, and her body is continuing to suffer with this cyst that needs to be removed, said Amy Fischer, director of refugee and migrant rights at Amnesty International.
ICE transferred Pedro-Francisco in March from Camp East Montana to the El Paso Service Processing Center, another detention center nearby. The move was to address her medical needs, an email sent from ICE to Pedro-Francisco's attorney said.
She has been receiving medication but still has no approval for surgery.
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In a statement sent to Scripps News, DHS says ICE is monitoring the womans health and that medical staff have determined her condition does not make her a candidate for surgical intervention.
Fischer says the government should not be able to overrule the detainees own doctor.
"ICE is not her medical provider, Fischer said. She is simply detained for the sake of being detained because that is the policy of the Trump administration.
Now Pedro-Francisco's abdominal pain is constant and has grown increasingly intense, her attorney wrote in a court filing.
A federal judge has ruled against Pedro-Francisco's immediate release, noting she is receiving medical attention while in ICE custody.
Her attorneys continue to fight for her to at least be given supervised bail so she may return to Minnesota while her immigration case plays out, enabling her to see her own doctor.
Her next court date is set for June.
