Cross Section: Immigrants’ health is threatened by politics

Zoe Cheng | Daily Trojan

In the past week, two cases regarding the health of undocumented children have struck the national news cycle — alarming lawmakers and citizens alike with the idea that proper health care for minors within American borders is an arena for debate at all. In the most recent case, 10-year-old Rosa Maria Hernandez was en route to the hospital for gall bladder surgery when her ambulance began to be trailed by border patrol agents, who ultimately detained Hernandez post-surgery.

In an almost parallel timeframe, an unidentified 17-year-old girl (“Jane Doe”) from Central America was the subject of a fierce legal debate after requesting an opportunity to receive an off-site abortion from the facility where she was detained; she had crossed the border unchaperoned by any guardian. With the American Civil Liberties Union on her side, however, Jane Doe was eventually able to have the procedure.

And yet, in both these cases, the fact stands: The Trump administration’s tight grip on the medical futures of these children is disturbing and unnecessary. Especially juxtaposed against the shadow of those test border-wall sections constructed with a gross, almost home-decor-esque display of nationalist fervor, Hernandez and Doe are the real faces of real people impacted by the real juggernaut of xenophobia leaked into law-making and law-deciding. It is becoming evident that when it comes to limiting illegal immigration, the government operates in a way that not only holds absolute disregard for the irreparable harm it may cause the minors whom it targets but also exploits, in the cruelest of ways, the idea that deporting undocumented immigrants will keep Americans safe and protected — apparently, in these circumstances, from children in need of medical care.

Indeed, such a method of thinking — that one’s citizenship status supersedes one’s right to care and safety — is a mentality that propels itself beyond the avenue of undocumented immigrants’ lives. Inordinately cruel, the sentiment that abortion is an excessive medical expense and that the well-being of children is second to national identity are ones that hold implications for and should disturb everyone living within the United States — citizen or not.

In his NPR article, reporter Bill Chappell quotes anti-abortion Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins, who referenced Jane Doe’s case, saying, “we hope that [the] Trump administration will continue to fight to protect the lives of all on U.S. soil.” There is too much irony to parse through here, though perhaps the most obvious contradiction to be pointed out is that the idea of protection, discussed over and over in regard to illegal immigration, seems — in Hawkins’ eyes, at least — to apply to everyone in this case but Doe herself. The mindset spoken by Hawkins and those with similar beliefs perpetuates an immense encroachment on human rights and access to basic health care for undocumented children and adults, not to mention the numerous adverse effects on their mental and physical health as a result.

In the case of Jane Doe, it is clearly a double issue between the human rights of the United States’ undocumented population and the issue of abortion itself. The Trump administration wants to make strides in dismantling abortion, and of course it would initially target someone it deems defenseless and voiceless (though, as the news cycle has demonstrated, Jane Doe has not stepped back from her own fight). And still, the uneasy battle surrounding Jane Doe’s efforts to live a life with freedom to choose what happens to her own body ultimately reflects back on the ongoing fight for the rights of undocumented women and girls — and also the right of all women to govern their own bodies. It is about the administration attacking the idea of abortion itself, and picking its fight where it feels the strongest — against a child whose voice, it figures, cannot rise high enough to protest. And yet, as is demonstrated with the aid of the ACLU, Jane’s voice did.

In this day and age, it is easy for political decisions to blend one into another, for the announcement of yet another piece of oppressive legislation to go over one’s head — especially when one doesn’t find oneself directly mired in the impacts of these new national movements. And yet, the mistreatment of undocumented children is an undeniable national shame, and such efforts by the administration to curb their rights cannot pass by without this acknowledgement: Limiting the human rights of many starts with limiting the human rights of a few.

Zoe Cheng is a junior majoring in writing for screen and television. Her column, “Cross Section,” runs Tuesdays.