美国国家公共电台 NPR Border Patrol Arrests Parents While Infant Awaits Serious Operation

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

U.S. immigration agents have had a longstanding policy. Certain places are off-limits for arresting immigrants who are in this country illegally - no schools, no hospitals. NPR's John Burnett has broken the story of a family that was followed by agents to a children's hospital in South Texas. They were arrested while their infant son awaited emergency surgery. As John tells us, this situation and several others have many worried about a new normal under President Trump¹'s immigration crackdown.

JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE²: Isaac Sanchez at 2 months old was diagnosed with pyloric stenosis. This is a condition that causes vomiting³, dehydration⁴ and weight loss in infants. It's curable with surgery, but no hospital in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas had a pediatric surgery team capable of performing the operation on his stomach. In order to cure Isaac, his parents, Oscar and Irma Sanchez, would need to take him to Driscoll Children's Hospital in Corpus Christi. It was just a couple of hours up the highway, but for them, it was a world away.

OSCAR SANCHEZ: (Speaking Spanish).

BURNETT: The trip would require passing a Border Patrol checkpoint, and the Sanchezes are undocumented. While they pondered their predicament in a Harlingen hospital, a Border Patrol agent showed up in the waiting room. Oscar Sanchez suspects a nurse turned them in. The agent said he could arrange for officers to escort the parents through the checkpoint to Corpus, but when they arrived, they would be arrested and put into deportation⁵ proceedings⁶. So began a 48-hour odyssey⁷ that shows the lengths to which the Trump administration will go to round up people in the country illegally whether they have a criminal record or not. Here's how it went down.

O. SANCHEZ: (Speaking Spanish).

BURNETT: The Border Patrol followed the ambulance as it raced to Corpus through desolate⁸ ranch⁹ land, carrying Oscar, Irma and tiny Isaac with an IV in his arm and a tube in his stomach. Once they arrived at the hospital, the green-uniformed agents never left the undocumented couple's side. Officers followed the father to the bathroom and to the cafeteria and asked the mother to leave the door open when she breastfed Isaac.

O. SANCHEZ: (Speaking Spanish).

BURNETT: You feel vulnerable, Oscar says. We didn't know if they were going to let us stay with our son or not. Customs and Border Protection say they are required to monitor subjects in custody¹⁰ at all times.

On the morning of May 25, agents took Mr. and Mrs. Sanchez separately from the hospital to the Corpus Christi Border Patrol station to be fingerprinted¹¹ and booked. They were permitted to return. Oscar Sanchez asked the surgeon if she could delay the operation until both parents could be in the waiting room. She agreed. The border patrol, in an email to NPR, says they made sure to leave one parent with the baby at all times and that agents played no role in the decision to postpone¹² the operation. Driscoll Children's Hospital, citing patient privacy, declined to discuss the case.

(SOUNDBITE OF BABY FUSSING)

BURNETT: On a recent Tuesday, Isaac sat on his mama's lap, all pudgy cheeks and wide eyes, wearing a top covered with little racecars. The family lives in a tidy, weathered frame house in North Brownsville.

IRMA SANCHEZ: (Speaking Spanish).

BURNETT: "Thank the lord everything went well," Irma says. "He still throws up a little milk, but thank God he's fine."

The Corpus Christi hospital episode is the latest controversy¹³ over so-called sensitive locations. Under President Obama, Homeland Security adopted a policy that immigration agents should avoid enforcement actions at hospitals, schools, churches and public demonstrations¹⁴ unless there are special circumstances. Advocates are puzzled why the Border Patrol chose to put Oscar and Irma under such intense supervision¹⁵ which one would expect for higher-value targets like drug traffickers or MS-13 gang members. The couple has no criminal records. He works construction and landscaping. She stays home with their four children, all of whom are U.S. citizens.

LISA KOOP: I can't pretend to understand any reasoning that would have led anyone up the chain of command to think that Irma and Oscar were flight risks or dangers to the community or in any other way people who needed to be followed into a hospital in order to be placed in deportation proceedings.

BURNETT: Lisa Koop is a lawyer with the National Immigrant Justice Center. She'll be asking an immigration judge in December to let the Sanchez parents remain with their children in the U.S. Ana Hinojosa is an immigrant advocate with the Mennonite Central Committee in Brownsville, who's also working on the case.

ANA HINOJOSA: They're a family that's just here trying to make a living, provide an education and a future for their children.

BURNETT: Advocates are concerned that immigration enforcers under Trump are chipping away at places formerly¹⁶ considered safe zones. Three examples - immigration agents detained six men leaving a church homeless shelter in Virginia. They removed a woman with a brain tumor¹⁷ from a Texas hospital and put her back in detention¹⁸. And they arrested a father after he dropped off his daughter at school in Los Angeles.

As with the Corpus hospital, the agency maintains none of the arrests was actually made inside the sensitive location. But several members of Congress - all Democrats¹⁹ - are troubled just the same. They've proposed the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, which would codify²⁰ protected places in federal law. And it would expand them to include courthouses and bus stops.

JOSE SERRANO: They're pushing the envelope to the point where they're trying to find out how far they can go.

BURNETT: Bronx Congressman²¹ Jose Serrano is one of the bill's authors. He's outraged²² by what happened in South Texas.

SERRANO: It violates human decency²³. You don't interrupt medical procedures.

BURNETT: Federal immigration agents say under this president, everyone who's in the country illegally is fair game. John Burnett, NPR News, Brownsville.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 vomiting   

吐

参考例句：

• Symptoms include diarrhoea and vomiting. 症状有腹泻和呕吐。
• Especially when I feel seasick, I can't stand watching someone else vomiting." 尤其晕船的时候，看不得人家呕。”

4 dehydration   

n.脱水，干燥

参考例句：

• He died from severe dehydration.他死于严重脱水。
• The eyes are often retracted from dehydration.眼睛常因脱水而凹陷。

5 deportation   

n.驱逐，放逐

参考例句：

• The government issued a deportation order against the four men.政府发出了对那4名男子的驱逐令。
• Years ago convicted criminals in England could face deportation to Australia.很多年以前，英国已定罪的犯人可能被驱逐到澳大利亚。

6 proceedings   

n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报

参考例句：

• He was released on bail pending committal proceedings. 他交保获释正在候审。
• to initiate legal proceedings against sb 对某人提起诉讼

7 odyssey   

n.长途冒险旅行；一连串的冒险

参考例句：

• The march to Travnik was the final stretch of a 16-hour odyssey.去特拉夫尼克的这段路是长达16小时艰险旅行的最后一程。
• His odyssey of passion, friendship,love,and revenge was now finished.他的热情、友谊、爱情和复仇的漫长历程，到此结束了。

8 desolate   

adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂

参考例句：

• The city was burned into a desolate waste.那座城市被烧成一片废墟。
• We all felt absolutely desolate when she left.她走后，我们都觉得万分孤寂。

9 ranch   

n.大牧场，大农场

参考例句：

• He went to work on a ranch.他去一个大农场干活。
• The ranch is in the middle of a large plateau.该牧场位于一个辽阔高原的中部。

10 custody   

n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留

参考例句：

• He spent a week in custody on remand awaiting sentence.等候判决期间他被还押候审一个星期。
• He was taken into custody immediately after the robbery.抢劫案发生后，他立即被押了起来。

11 fingerprinted   

v.指纹( fingerprint的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The criminal was fingerprinted in the sheriff's office. 罪犯在警长办公室里被取下指纹。 来自辞典例句
• They were then taken to be photographed and fingerprinted. 然后，他们被带去照相、留指纹。 来自互联网

12 postpone   

v.延期，推迟

参考例句：

• I shall postpone making a decision till I learn full particulars.在未获悉详情之前我得从缓作出决定。
• She decided to postpone the converastion for that evening.她决定当天晚上把谈话搁一搁。

13 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

14 demonstrations   

证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威

参考例句：

• Lectures will be interspersed with practical demonstrations. 讲课中将不时插入实际示范。
• The new military government has banned strikes and demonstrations. 新的军人政府禁止罢工和示威活动。

15 supervision   

n.监督，管理

参考例句：

• The work was done under my supervision.这项工作是在我的监督之下完成的。
• The old man's will was executed under the personal supervision of the lawyer.老人的遗嘱是在律师的亲自监督下执行的。

16 formerly   

adv.从前，以前

参考例句：

• We now enjoy these comforts of which formerly we had only heard.我们现在享受到了过去只是听说过的那些舒适条件。
• This boat was formerly used on the rivers of China.这船从前航行在中国内河里。

17 tumor   

n.（肿）瘤，肿块(英)tumour

参考例句：

• He was died of a malignant tumor.他死于恶性肿瘤。
• The surgeons irradiated the tumor.外科医生用X射线照射那个肿瘤。

18 detention   

n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下

参考例句：

• He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
• He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。

19 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

20 codify   

v.将法律、法规等编成法典

参考例句：

• The noble,Dracon,was asked to codify the laws.贵族德拉古被选为立法者。
• The new government promised to codify the laws.新政府应允要编纂法典。

21 Congressman   

n.（美）国会议员

参考例句：

• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman.他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。
• The congressman is meditating a reply to his critics.这位国会议员正在考虑给他的批评者一个答复。

22 outraged   

a.震惊的，义愤填膺的

参考例句：

• Members of Parliament were outraged by the news of the assassination. 议会议员们被这暗杀的消息激怒了。
• He was outraged by their behavior. 他们的行为使他感到愤慨。

23 decency   

n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重

参考例句：

• His sense of decency and fair play made him refuse the offer.他的正直感和公平竞争意识使他拒绝了这一提议。
• Your behaviour is an affront to public decency.你的行为有伤风化。