Originally destined for Akron Children’s Hospital in Ohio, the African woman was kept in a windowless room for a week with her disabled son.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) – A pregnant woman has agreed to return to Ghana after lawyers say customs officials forced her to be deported.
That woman, Anabella Gyasi, arrived on a valid visa to seek medical treatment for her disabled 4-year-old son. But according to her lawyers, customs officials kept them for a week in a windowless room and denied them proper food.
U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema said Friday that Gyasi should not spend another night in that room. She also said the Ghanaian woman had been clear about her wishes.
“She wants to go home,” Brinkema said. In one one page orderthe Bill Clinton appointee dismissed the matter as moot, noting that according to the federal government, Gyasi and her son “may fly to Ghana tonight.”
IN a press releaseThe ACLU had connected the dots between the Trump administration’s birthright citizenship policy and Gyasi’s case. President Donald Trump has asked to undo longstanding constitutional precedent, which says that with rare exceptions, anyone born in the United States is a citizen.
According to the ACLU, this has led to “abuses of pregnant women and children in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security.” They cited another case where they said a pregnant woman “was left alone without water or medical assistance for more than 24 hours as she collapsed.”
Gyasi “is just one of a number of pregnant people who have been arrested in shocking numbers in the wake of President Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship,” Sophia Gregg, ACLU Virginia senior immigrant rights attorney, said in the news release. “It has to stop.”
Gyasi arrived seeking surgical care for her son, who was born with severe physical deformities affecting both hands.
She arrived at Dulles International Airport in Virginia on May 19 and was destined for an appointment at Akron Children’s Hospital in Ohio, the ACLU said in court documents. They say Gyasi also revealed her “fear of returning to Ghana based on the persecution she and her son faced”.
It was not Gyasi’s first such trip. Two years ago, she brought the boy to the United States to seek medical treatment, but was told he was too young.
Upon arrival on this trip, they were held for seven days by Customs and Border Protection in a windowless room with a single bed, a toilet and a sink. Gyasi, who is more than four months pregnant, experienced vaginal bleeding and was taken to the hospital twice, the ACLU says in court documents.
ACLU attorneys allege Gyasi and her son were denied proper food until she agreed to be deported.
Five days into the ordeal, Gyasi’s son “spent most of the day crying because of hunger pangs, and Ms. Gyasi was in constant fear of fainting,” the ACLU said in its press release. “Due to her concern for her unborn child, Ms Gyasi told officers she would rather be deported than denied food.”
“CBP has put Ms. Gyasi in an impossible position: either risk her life (life) and the life of her unborn child to improve the life of her young son, or return home to provide safe conditions for her pregnancy but unsafe conditions for her son,” Eden Heilman, legal director for the ACLU of Virginia, said in a statement. “No parent should be expected to make such a choice.”
After Gyasi agreed to the deportation, the ACLU says she was told she could have all the food she wanted, as well as a shower.
Gregg informed border agents that Gyasi and her son did not want to give up their asylum claims. In court documents, Gregg says that “Gyasi had agreed to be deported out of desperation for the health and well-being” of her son and unborn child.
ACLU attorneys wanted to secure the release of Gyasi and her son so they could continue to seek medical attention. The lawyers had also sought a ban on leaving the country until their case could be heard.
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