Mar 22, 2025; Philadelphia, PA, USA; President Donald Trump during the Division I Men's Wrestling Championship held at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images
Los Angeles, California – The Trump administration has revoked humanitarian parole for a 4-year-old Mexican girl who relies on lifesaving medical treatment in California, according to attorneys representing the family. The move, revealed at a press conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday, raises fears that deportation could threaten the child’s life.
The girl, who suffers from short bowel syndrome, cannot absorb nutrients through traditional digestion and survives through a specialized intravenous nutrition system carried in a backpack. Her condition makes treatment in Mexico unfeasible, attorneys said, and doctors believe she would die within days without access to the care she currently receives in the United States.
In 2023, the child’s mother brought her to the U.S.-Mexico border, where authorities granted her humanitarian parole. Upon arrival, U.S. officials immediately transferred the child to a San Diego hospital. She later joined a home treatment program at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and now lives with her family in Bakersfield.
However, the family received notices from the U.S. government in April and May that the government had revoked their humanitarian parole status and they could be deported. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has not commented on the case. A Homeland Security official stated that the family is not currently being deported and that a more recent application for parole, filed two weeks ago, is under review.
The action comes amid the Trump administration’s broader effort to roll back immigration policies established under the Biden administration. Humanitarian parole, a temporary measure that does not grant citizenship, was widely used under President Biden to manage border crossings and to address individual emergencies. In contrast, the Trump administration is narrowing its use.
In Mexico, the girl’s condition kept her largely confined to a hospital. Since entering the U.S., she has begun experiencing everyday life — visiting parks and stores, her mother said — something previously unimaginable due to her fragile health.
Attorneys from Public Counsel, a nonprofit legal aid organization, have filed a new humanitarian parole application on behalf of the family and reached out to U.S. officials and lawmakers for intervention. They say deporting the child and her family not only endangers her life but also contradicts basic humanitarian principles.
As of now, the family remains in the U.S. while awaiting a decision on their parole status, with growing uncertainty about what comes next.
