Trump administration revokes legal status for 4-year-old with life-threatening condition

A 4-year-old girl with a life-threatening medical condition could be deported after the Trump administration canceled her legal status last month.

The child came to the United States from Mexico with her family in 2023 seeking treatment for short bowel syndrome, a condition that  prevents her from processing nutrients on her own. She was granted legal entry through a process called humanitarian parole.

Since then, her family said care and equipment from Children's Hospital Los Angeles has allowed her to live the semblance of a normal life, even while being hooked up to intravenous tubes the majority of the day.

But that's under threat now. The family said the Department of Homeland Security sent them notice last month saying her humanitarian parole was revoked and they had to leave the U.S. Her mother's work authorization was also canceled.

At a news conference Wednesday in Los Angeles, the 4-year-old girl with bouncy curls sat at the front of a room crowded with media, her little feet dangling off of an adult's chair. She smiled and played with stickers while the adults around her explained the situation in no uncertain terms: Her doctors say she could die within days if her family is deported.

"Deporting this family under these conditions is not only unlawful; it constitutes a moral failure that violates the basic tenets of humanity and decency," said one of the family's attorneys, Gina Amato with Public Counsel.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said "any reporting that Vargas and her family are actively being deported are FALSE."

Access to medical equipment

Lawyers said Wednesday that the equipment that allows the girl to live outside of the hospital is only available in the U.S. Her mother, Deysi Vargas, described a laborious daily process in which her daughter is hooked up to IVs for 14 hours each night and is fed through gastric tubes up to four times a day.

She said it's this process that means that her daughter can now go to the park and the grocery store, and can live at her family's home in Bakersfield after living her early life entirely in the hospital.

" When we lived in Mexico, my daughter, she did not get any better," Vargas said through an interpreter. "Now with the help that she has received in the United States, my daughter has an opportunity to get out of the hospital, know the world and live like a normal girl of four years."

Vargas said that if her daughter is forced to return to Mexico, she will have to return to full-time hospitalization.

" I am very scared because [she] runs the risk of not receiving the treatment that she requires for her condition," she said.

The case comes amid a broader attempt by the Trump administration to end programs that admit entry to the U.S. for humanitarian reasons.

Lawyers for the child said they had asked the Trump administration to reconsider the decision to end her humanitarian parole, and also filed a new application on her behalf. They said they have not heard back.

The Homeland Security spokesperson told LAist that the application is being considered.

" This administration is moving quickly and broadly. Children are being swept up in the fallout. This is a crisis that can and should be avoided," said Public Counsel lawyer Rebecca Brown. "We remain hopeful that the decision-makers will do the right thing."