The Deportation Crisis Facing Children with Cancer
Written By: Diya Sriramagiri
A young girl carries a child inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection holding area in El Paso, Texas. Lucas Jackson/Reuters
In hospitals across the United States, pediatric oncology units are places of hope, pain, and tireless science. Chemotherapy regimens are delicately timed. Proton radiation is planned with millimeter precision. In this setting, continuity of care isn’t a luxury — it’s the line between relapse and remission. But what happens when the law interrupts the science? Over the past several months, multiple U.S.-born children — some battling cancer, others dependent on life-sustaining infusions — have been deported or threatened with deportation due to their undocumented parents' immigration status. Legal advocates and physicians are raising alarms about the profound public health consequences of immigration enforcement that disregards medical necessity, especially when children are U.S. citizens. One of the most wrenching cases is that of "Sara," a pseudonym for a 10-year-old U.S. citizen diagnosed with a rare brain tumor. Sara had been receiving specialized care in Houston, including chemotherapy, radiation, and complex monitoring by a multidisciplinary team. But in a swift turn, Sara was detained at a Texas border checkpoint and deported to Mexico with her family. Her care was instantly disrupted. Her team’s treatment protocol — carefully calibrated for her age, tumor type, and radiation response — could not be easily replicated in Northern Mexico.
Days without access to medication or follow-up scans jeopardized her recovery, exposing a fault line between medical ethics and immigration enforcement. For pediatric patients, treatment regimens often depend on biochemical timing. Antimetabolites like methotrexate and vincristine, common in pediatric chemotherapy, require close monitoring to avoid toxicity or resistance. Interrupting cycles can lead to cancer cell resurgence or irreversible damage. In cases involving brain tumors, even small deviations can increase intracranial pressure or cause neurocognitive deficits. A child like Sara, receiving drugs with narrow therapeutic windows, cannot afford the chaos of sudden deportation. Meanwhile, families facing revocation of humanitarian parole — a temporary status that allows critically ill children to access U.S. hospitals — are watching life-saving care slip away. In Los Angeles, a 4-year-old with short bowel syndrome nearly lost access to IV nutrition after her parole was rescinded. Only after public outcry did U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reinstate it, extending her protection until 2026. According to the Texas Civil Rights Project, at least three U.S. citizen children have been deported this year alongside undocumented mothers, despite active medical needs. In many cases, advocates claim that parents were not given full information or legal counsel, raising due process concerns and ethical red flags. “From a public health perspective, this isn’t just immoral — it’s medically dangerous,” Senior Attorney at the National Immigration Project Gracie Willis said. “We're seeing kids forcibly removed from their care teams, which could cost them their lives.” Under U.S. law, citizens — including children — cannot be forcibly removed from the country.
Yet these cases show how a lack of legal literacy, fear of detention, and misinformation can lead to de facto deportations. For medical professionals and public health scientists, these stories are more than human tragedies — they’re systemic failures. In pediatric oncology, outcomes already vary based on socioeconomic status, geography, and race. Immigration enforcement now appears to be a new axis of disparity. The American Academy of Pediatrics has called for immigration policies that “do no harm” to child health. But enforcement actions continue to override medical advisories. For scientists, clinicians, and policymakers in the ACS community, this raises an urgent question: when molecular precision meets bureaucratic indifference, how do we protect the most vulnerable patients? There is growing momentum to create humanitarian exemptions that better account for pediatric medical cases, but progress is slow. In the meantime, community health workers, immigrant rights attorneys, and frontline physicians are working together to document cases and prevent future tragedies. Stories like Sara’s are not isolated. They represent a silent crisis at the intersection of medicine, law, and human rights — one that deserves far more attention from the scientific and public health community. If you are a medical scientist, health communicator, or policy researcher, consider joining advocacy efforts to document and support vulnerable pediatric patients caught in the deportation pipeline. Learn more through the National Immigration Project, Texas Civil Rights Project, or the American Academy of Pediatrics’ immigrant health initiatives.
Works Cited
Aleaziz, Hamed. “A Child with a Brain Tumor Was Deported by the U.S. Her Doctors Say She’s Now at Risk.” NBC News, 11 June 2024, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/child-brain-tumor-deported-family-humanitarian-parole-medical-rcna211925. Accessed 22 June 2025.
BBC News. “The 11-Year-Old Girl with a Brain Tumour Deported by the US.” BBC, 12 June 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g8yj2n33yo. Accessed 22 June 2025.
Ayala, Elaine. “Ayala: Joaquín Castro Seeks Help for Deported Family, Daughter with Brain Cancer.” San Antonio Express-News, 11 June 2024, https://www.expressnews.com/columnist/elaine-ayala/article/ayala-deportation-castro-brain-cancer-20324669.php. Accessed 22 June 2025.
Rector, Kevin. “She’s 4 Years Old. Her Deportation Could Be a Death Sentence, Doctors Say.” Los Angeles Times, 3 May 2024, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-03/girl-4-deported-illness-humanitarian-parole. Accessed 22 June 2025.
Texas Civil Rights Project. “Families Shouldn’t Be Deported with Their Citizen Children.” TCRP Press Release, 10 June 2024, https://txcivilrights.org/latest/family-deportation-case/. Accessed 22 June 2025.
Willis, Gracie. “Statement on the Deportation of U.S. Citizen Children.” National Immigration Project, 12 June 2024, https://nipnlg.org/pr/2024.06.12.html. Accessed 22 June 2025.
American Academy of Pediatrics. “Protecting Immigrant Children’s Health.” AAP Policy Statement, May 2021, https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/147/5/e2021051480/180652/Protecting-Immigrant-Children-s-Health. Accessed 22 June 2025.
