Annabella Gyasi, 38, arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport on May 19 with her young son, both traveling on valid visas for a medical appointment related to the boy’s severely malformed hands. Instead of receiving the scheduled care, they were taken into custody by immigration officers after Gyasi told the officers that they had faced persecution in Ghana and feared returning, according to a petition filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia.
The mother and son were held in a windowless detention room at the airport while U.S. immigration authorities processed their case. Gyasi was hospitalized twice during the detention — once for vaginal bleeding and again for high blood pressure — as her pregnancy complications worsened, the ACLU said.
After the hospitalizations, Gyasi felt she had no choice but to agree to return to Ghana. Her lawyers said she was ordered deported and that the two were being flown back to Africa on Friday.
“While we’re relieved that Ms. Gyasi and her son will soon be free from this nightmare, no one should be subjected to the inhumane conditions they endured,” Mary Bauer, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, said in a statement.
The detention of a pregnant woman and a child with a disability traveling on valid visas echoes a series of recent cases in which U.S. immigration enforcement at airports has drawn criticism from advocacy groups over the treatment of vulnerable individuals seeking entry.