WASHINGTON – Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) said Monday that a mom in her Tampa district was “ripped away” from her infant by ICE agents and unlawfully deported to Cuba.
In a letter to President Donald Trump, Castor urges him to “immediately” grant humanitarian parole for Heidy Sánchez, whose husband told Castor that ICE agents’ separation of Sanchez from her infant daughter was so traumatic that the baby was taken to the hospital.
“The baby was still breastfeeding at the time your Administration tore them apart, and the baby’s ongoing health issues require her mother’s return to the U.S. as soon as possible,” Castor wrote to Trump.
“It is unconscionable and wrong for your ICE personnel to harm families in this way,” she said. “Ms. Sánchez is entitled to due process, and her husband and daughter (both U.S. citizens) deserve to be treated with the dignity we value as Americans.”
Here’s the full text of Castor’s letter to Trump, provided to the press:
Dear President Trump:
I write to call out the cruel and unlawful treatment of Heidy Sánchez from Tampa, Florida who was ripped away from her infant daughter and husband last Thursday and transported to Cuba. I urge you to grant Ms. Sánchez humanitarian parole and return her to her family in Tampa immediately.
Ms. Sánchez’s husband, Carlos Yuniel Valle, advised me that the separation of mother and daughter was so sudden and traumatic that their infant daughter was taken to the hospital. The baby was still breastfeeding at the time your Administration tore them apart, and the baby’s ongoing health issues require her mother’s return to the U.S. as soon as possible. Ms. Sánchez, a mother and home health aide, was complying with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) request to regularly check in at the local Tampa office. During her appointment last Tuesday, she was unceremoniously ripped away from her daughter and husband and transported to Cuba.
It is unconscionable and wrong for your ICE personnel to harm families in this way. Ms. Sánchez is entitled to due process, and her husband and daughter (both U.S. citizens) deserve to be treated with the dignity we value as Americans. Due to the suffocating oppression in Cuba and lack of essentials like food and clean water, Ms. Sánchez should not be trafficked to a country where she will be harmed and suffer.
You attended the funeral of Pope Francis over the weekend, so I recommend that you honor his memory by acting consistently with his recent admonition that we are “called upon to consider the legitimacy of norms and public policies in the light of the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights.”
The treatment of the Sánchez-Valle family is a deep stain on your Administration and is repugnant to American values and constitutional protections, but it does not have to be this way. You have the authority to grant humanitarian parole to Ms. Sánchez and reunite this family today in Tampa. I urge you to do so immediately.
Sincerely,
Sánchez’s lawyer, Claudia Cañizares, told The Associated Press on Saturday that Sánchez had an outstanding deportation order stemming from 2019, when she missed a hearing that led to her being detained for nine months. Cuba didn’t take Sánchez back at the time, so she was released in 2020 and told to keep up a regular schedule of check-ins with ICE.
Cañizares said Sánchez is not a criminal and has a strong case on humanitarian grounds for remaining in the U.S. She also noted that Sánchez’s infant suffers from seizures.
A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
ICE did not initially respond to a request for comment. But on Wednesday, two days after this story published, an agency spokesperson accused HuffPost and Castor of “peddling a false narrative” in an effort to “demonize our ICE enforcement agents.”
The spokesperson essentially said it’s not ICE’s fault that Sánchez’s baby is struggling after being separated from her mom. Suggesting Sánchez had real agency in this situation, the spokesperson said she could have chosen to endure the trauma of being abruptly deported with her baby, but she chose to leave the baby in the care of the father.
“Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with someone the parent designates,” said the spokesperson. “In this case, the parent stated they wanted to be removed without the child and left the child in the care of a safe relative in the United States.”
The Trump administration is giving parents in the country illegally “the opportunity to self deport,” the spokesperson added, and to “take control of their departure process.”
As for Castor’s letter to Trump, the Department of Homeland Security “responds to official correspondence through official channels,” said the spokesperson.
Sánchez’s deportation is just the latest in the Trump administration’s campaign to deport as many people as possible who may be in the country illegally or even temporarily, like on a visa, regardless of whether they’ve committed violent crimes. Many are being deported without due process, which is a right under the Constitution.
ICE acting director Tom Homan has been particularly aggressive and cruel amid this campaign, but his threats of never-before-seen levels of deportations have fallen short, so now he’s telling people to deport themselves.
The Supreme Court last month blocked Trump’s efforts to deport a group of Venezuelan immigrants under an 18th century wartime law. But that was after the White House used the obscure law to deport more than 200 Venezuelan-born immigrants to a grim El Salvador prison. Trump claimed they were gang members, but there is little to no evidence for this.
The White House confirmed this month that Trump is also looking into ways to deport U.S. citizens, which would be illegal.
“These would be heinous, violent criminals who have broken our nation’s laws repeatedly,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “These are violent, repeat offenders on American streets.”