Sara Beltran-Hernandez

Federal agents move woman awaiting emergency surgery at Texas hospital to detention site
Barbara Demick Los Angeles Times

A critically ill woman from El Salvador who was awaiting emergency surgery for a brain tumor was forcibly moved from a Texas hospital to a detention center by federal agents, raising concerns about President Trump’s directive to more aggressively pursue people living in the country illegally.

Sara Beltran-Hernandez, 26, a mother of two young children, was bound by her hands and feet and removed by wheelchair from Huguley Hospital in Fort Worth late Wednesday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who brought her to a detention facility in Alvarado, Texas.

“It is heartbreaking and inhumane,’’ said Chris Hamilton, a Texas lawyer who tried to visit the woman Wednesday night at the detention center, where he was threatened with arrest for trespassing.

“This is unacceptable under our Constitution, and unacceptable from a standpoint of basic human rights,” Hamilton said. “This woman is critically ill and in severe pain.”