What kind of government would prohibit parents from visiting their dying 26-year-old daughter? What sort of sick system would allow a young mother and wife to be ejected from a hospital right before surgery scheduled for her spinal tumor? The capitalist kind.
Although the tumor was said to be inoperable, Maria Sanchez was scheduled for surgery almost two years ago at University of Houston Medical Branch but was refused care and thrown out of the hospital when it was discovered that she was undocumented.
Aguillon Sanchez, Maria’s husband, then moved with his wife and their 5-year-old daughter to Houston for treatment, but her health continued to decline. Aguillon was unable to maintain steady work and instead stayed home to attend to his ailing wife.
At the time of her death Maria Sanchez had not seen her parents since crossing the border nine years ago. Her parents were denied “humanitarian parole”—needed enter the country without a visa—three times. Customs and Border Patrol stated that only a “very compelling emergency” would warrant granting such a measure.
The nature of that statement in and of itself is outright racist and cruel. What could be a more compelling emergency than two parents needing to see their dying daughter one last time and hold her in their arms? What could be a more compelling emergency than the need for a young woman staring death in the face to be comforted in her final days with her mother and father by her side?
While the U.S. ruling class continues to invade and destroy other countries on the false basis of “humanitarianism,” the most basic rights of this family were denied. As U.S. foreign policy continues to decimate the agricultural economy of Mexico and prop up the drug economy that terrorizes the population, it also continues to dehumanize and terrorize the population that immigrates to escape the poverty and destruction it created.
The contradictions of a system that rules the world with brute force with claims of “humanitarianism” are hard to overstate. We live in the richest country on the planet and in a society where unemployment, homelessness and poverty are reality for an ever-growing number of people. Three times, the U.S. government denied “humanitarian parole” for the most humanitarian case someone could make. Immigrant rights are human rights! An injury to one is an injury to all!
