"'It was something very frustrating ... and very difficult,” the mother said from Mexico in Spanish. “It felt like a bucket of boiling water — or maybe cold water, I don’t even know — was thrown at me.”
The child was 10 years old when immigration authorities deported both of her parents, who were undocumented, to Mexico more than a year ago. The girl and four of her siblings, three of whom are also U.S. citizens, also left with their parents.
NBC News is withholding the name of the mother and family members because they now live in an area of Mexico where U.S. citizens have been kidnapped.
Their removal interrupted months of lifesaving treatment the girl had been receiving in the U.S. after undergoing emergency surgery in 2024 to remove the brain tumor, which her doctors are still studying because it is so unusual.
Now 12, her health has significantly deteriorated since she started living in Mexico without access to the care she needs, her mother said in an exclusive interview with NBC News.
That reality became inescapable last month when her daughter had a seizure so intense she fell and suffered bruising, the mother said. They rushed to the nearest hospital, which was 2 1/2 hours away by car from where they live with the mother’s elderly parents. There, an MRI and tests returned abnormal results, the mother said.
The girl’s specialist doctors in the U.S. told the mother the results show the girl’s brain is not regenerating, an important part of recovery that helps restore lost neurological functions such as motor skills and speech. It also reduces the likelihood of a new tumor forming, she said.
“Instead of improving, my daughter’s health is actually regressing,” the mother said."
~ Nicole Acevedo
"Deported family of U.S. citizen girl with rare brain tumor denied parole"
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