ACLU Says Immigrant Child Detained By Border Patrol Has Missed Medical Appointments

Our daily roundup of Texas headlines.

By Becky FogelNovember 2, 2017 1:37 pm

The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting, sometimes irreverent, and breaking news stories from all over the state.

Texas business leaders to challenge lawmakers who supported controversial bills

Texas business leaders are planning to hold state lawmakers accountable if they supported controversial bills during the 2017 legislative session. The Texas Association of Business opposed Senate bills 4 and 6, which targeted so-called “sanctuary cities” and bathroom access for transgender people, respectively.

TAB President Chris Wallace spoke at the Texas Business Equality Conference in Dallas Wednesday.

“If we have an incumbent who’s running again who does not score well with us, and who has been anti-business, anti-eminent domain, anti-immigration, anti-Hispanic, discriminatory in terms of SB6 and 2899. If they supported all of those things, we’re going to run against them,” Wallace said.

Wallace did acknowledge it could be tough to follow through on that though, since even lawmakers who support these kinds of bills identify themselves as pro-business.  The TAB will release a legislative scorecard later this month.

Rosa Maria Hernandez is missing doctor’s appointments

The American Civil Liberties Union wants to get a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy released from federal custody in San Antonio. U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained Rosa Maria Hernandez in a Corpus Christi hospital after she underwent gallbladder surgery last week. Hernandez, who has lived in Laredo since she was a baby, is undocumented.

Edgar Saldivar, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Texas, says her ongoing detention is preventing her from making doctor’s appointments.

“She was supposed to see her doctor this past Saturday, but because she in detention she was unable to,” Saldivar says. “She also has an upcoming follow-up visit with her surgeon for this Friday, and without her being released she won’t be able to make that, so this is definitely an emergency situation and we’re asking the court for help to make this happen.”

Saldivar explains that Hernandez’s case is extreme, it’s also not unique. He says the ACLU of Texas has gotten many reports of similar incidents where undocumented people needing medical care have encountered border patrol. Saldivar says this has even kept some people from seeking medical help, “because they’re scared of being potential subjected to a deportation proceeding if they are undocumented.”

Border Patrol identified Hernandez as undocumented when she traveled through an interior checkpoint between Laredo and the hospital.

Saldivar says the ACLU is pushing to get a hearing this week in a federal court in San Antonio.

Houston Astros shortstop makes winning proposal

It’s a good thing, the final game of the World Series went according to plan for Houston Astros shortstop Carlos Correa. After the Astros clinched the title, Correa proposed to his girlfriend.

The team at MLB Tonight asked Correa if he would have proposed if the Astros had lost. He adamantly replied that he wouldn’t have.

“No, no! If we lost I would have been crying right now,” Correa exclaimed.

Correa’s fiancé is Daniella Rodriguez who was Miss Texas in 2016. The Houston Astros won their first World Series in franchise history. It’s also the first time a Texas Major League Baseball team has won a World Series title.