MA REPRIEVE
Asylum-seeker with tumor spared deportation
QUEENS tumor patient Sara Beltran Hernandez won a lastminute reprieve in her ongoing asylum case Monday and won’t be deported to El Salvador next week as planned, a panel of three federal judges ruled.
The 5th Circuit tribunal issued its stay of deportation just 10 days before Sara Beltran Hernandez was due at Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in Manhattan for “removal,” her lawyer said.
“I’m so happy and relieved. I was so stressed out last week. I feel more at peace now,” Beltran Hernandez said Monday.
“This is good news for now. My mother and I are very happy right now,” she said, speaking in Spanish by phone.
“We’re very relieved,” attorney Fatma Marouf said. “ICE won’t be able to deport Sara until the court issues a decision.”
Beltran Hernandez, 26, is now receiving treatment at Bellevue for a tumor in her skull that’s causing vision loss, dizziness and painful migraines.
Despite her medical condition and the fact she’s out on bail during her asylum case appeal, the mother of two with no criminal record received a notice from ICE earlier this month stating her deportation was set for Sept. 28.
Marouf quickly filed paperwork to block the move, but time was running out when Beltran Hernandez first spoke to the Daily News last week.
“I’m undergoing a delicate medical treatment here right now. I can’t lose that,” she said Thursday. “If my treatment is interrupted, life.”
Marouf said she’s now trying to get ICE to cancel her client’s meeting next week.
“I’m sending them the order. If she still has to go, she’ll have the order to protect her,” Marouf said.
Beltran Hernandez first learned about her dangerous tumor when she began hemorrhaging and collapsed inside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Tex., last February.
She’d already been in ICE custody for 15 months following her arrest as she crossed the border in November 2015.
The health scare landed her in Texas Health Huguley Hospital in Fort Worth, and her story it can cost me my gained national headlines when she was yanked from her bed on Feb. 22 and returned to Prairieland in a wheelchair.
Her Queens relatives worried she might die. Lawyers filed emergency paperwork and won her release on bail.
Beltran Hernandez flew to La Guardia and has been living with her mom and stepfather in Jamaica while receiving specialized treatment at Bellevue.
“I’m scheduled to undergo brain surgery. We are trying to schedule that,” she told The News. “It’s very painful.”
Beltran Hernandez said she was worried that the stress of her deportation notice was making her bad situation even worse.
She also expressed fear that the violent gang Mara 18 was waiting for her back in El Salvador. She said they harassed her and threatened her in her home when they learned she was dating a cop.