Doctor says woman's deportation would be a death sentence

VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. — A Central Florida immigration attorney has filed a civil lawsuit in federal court to try to keep a 46-year-old woman from being sent back to Honduras.

"Every day, I get up, and I say, ‘I don’t know what is next, but I have to live,'" Doris Fuentes Chavez told 9 Investigates.

Chavez's doctors, who treat her for free via Volusia Volunteers in Medicine, wrote in court documents that deportation would be a death sentence.

The woman has hypertension and her kidneys are failing. Her doctors worry she won’t receive the care she needs in her native Honduras.

Chavez's attorney filed an emergency motion in federal court to force U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to respond.

The woman has been in the United States for 20 years, but she could be deported on July 10 during a check-in with ICE.

According to the lawsuit, Chavez was convicted of forgery or false use of a passport in 2014 and served probation.

A deportation order was finalized in December 2016, but her attorney said until recently, she’s been allowed to stay in Volusia County.

Due to her medical condition, he argued in court documents that she should be allowed to stay under a portion of the law that provides special recognition for noncitizens who are seeking relief from certain death.

"My life is, like, every day, living one day at a time," Chavez said.

The lawsuit alleges Chavez was told she would be detained and removed when she reports to Immigration and Customs Enforcement on July 10, 2018.

"We don’t send people to their deaths," attorney Diego Handel said. "We aren't a country that does that. We've never done it."

Handel said in the suit that because of her grave health, federal immigration authorities until recently allowed her to remain in the United States, giving her an order of supervision instead of deportation.

Handel applied for a stay of removal on Chavez's behalf in April, which would put deportation on hold.

He also said in the suit that Chavez has sought humanitarian parole, which would allow her to stay in the United States under emergency circumstances.

Neither request has been acted upon.

"They could have granted those, and avoided all this, but yet they haven't," Handel said. "They've chosen to ignore (the requests), essentially."

A federal judge ordered ICE officials to file a response to an emergency motion attached to the lawsuit by July 9.

An ICE spokesman told 9 Investigates that the agency doesn't comment on pending legal matters except to say that it will abide by decisions made by the courts.

Cox Media Group