A federal judge ordered Friday that a pregnant woman and her 4-year-old son be freed from immigration-related detention at Dulles International Airport after 10 days.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, immigration officials at the Northern Virginia airport detained the woman from Ghana and her son in a windowless room, after she brought her son to the U.S. on a tourist visa.
Anabella Gyasi, 38, planned to take him to a hospital in Ohio for treatment of an abnormality in his hands.
Customs and Border Protection officers asked Gyasi at the airport if she feared persecution in her own country, The Washington Post reported. She answered that she did, fearing her son could face harm in Ghana because of his disability.
According to court documents, Customs and Border Protection officers said Gyasi also told them she intended to seek asylum in the U.S. and remain here.
Customs and Border Protection then nullified her tourist visa, classified her as an asylum applicant and started considering her case.
Eden Heilman, legal director for the ACLU of Virginia, said Gyasi was denied asylum.
“They are now seeking to remove her, but again at this point, we don’t know when, and in the interim she is literally sitting in this room without access to care,” Heilman told ²ÝÝ®´«Ã½ on Thursday.
According to the organization, the court intervened Friday.
“The court ordered in no uncertain terms that Ms. Gyasi and her son are not to spend another night in Dulles Airport. Ms. Gyasi’s health and the viability of her pregnancy have both been endangered for more than a week as a result of the Trump administration’s dangerous and unlawful detention practices,” ACLU of Virginia’s Executive Director Mary Bauer said in a statement.
Heilman said Gyasi is almost 20 weeks pregnant and experienced symptoms in detention “indicating that things are getting more and more complicated with her pregnancy.”
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