HOUSTON: Immigration advocates are protesting the case of a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy now potentially facing deportation after having to cross a Border Patrol checkpoint for emergency gallbladder surgery.
The 10-year-old, Rosa Maria Hernandez, was taken this week from the Texas border city of Laredo to a Corpus Christi children's hospital.
A family attorney says agents let her through a checkpoint separating the cities, but followed her and a cousin to the hospital, and refused to release her after the surgery.
Rosa Maria is in the US without legal permission.
She was instead taken to a federal facility for unaccompanied minors in San Antonio, where she could be held for several weeks.
A Border Patrol statement says its agents are "committed to enforcing the immigration laws of this nation."