A pregnant Ghanaian woman who entered the United States on a valid visa with her 4-year-old son so he could get medical care was detained for more than a week in a windowless detention room at a Washington airport, her lawyers said in court documents.
Annabella Gyasi arrived last Tuesday at Washington Dulles International Airport ahead of an appointment for her son, who was born with deformed hands, at Akron Children’s Hospital in Ohio, according to an emergency petition filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia.
Her lawyers say the couple came to the United States in 2024 for medical care, but returned to Ghana after they were told the boy was still too young for surgery.
This time, they booked a connecting flight for a May 30 appointment in Akron to see if he was old enough for surgery.
Instead, they were detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection after Gyasi, 38 and just over four months pregnant, said she feared returning to Ghana because of the persecution they had faced, her lawyers say.
“Ms. Gyasi traveled lawfully to the United States to obtain necessary medical care for her son, but the unlawful detention and inhumane treatment she is subjected to in Dallas puts her son’s health and her own at risk,” Sophia Gregg, an immigrant rights attorney with the ACLU of Virginia, said in a statement.
Immigration officials insisted she had not been mistreated.
“These allegations are false,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “Every person in CBP custody, including this person, has access to appropriate care, including medical evaluation by a physician, medications, and food.”
Since her arrival in the United States, the lawyers say, Gyasi has been hospitalized twice for pregnancy complications, including vaginal bleeding and dizziness, but both times she was returned to a detention room in Dallas. The legal group said in a statement that doctors “expressed concern during one visit that she was not eating enough while in detention and was suffering from excessive stress.”
Lawyers say Gyasi repeatedly told the guards that she and her son were hungry, but were denied extra food.
Fearing for the fetus, Gyasi said she would rather be deported than not get enough to eat. Lawyers say she was given food as soon as she signed the deportation order.
Lawyers later told CBP officers that she only agreed to be deported out of desperation.
An order issued by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema cited immigration officials as saying Gyasi cannot use tourist visas to enter the United States and is being prepared for expedited deportation because she “admitted under oath that she came to the United States to seek asylum and it was not her intention to leave the United States to return to Ghana.”
Brinkema ordered a hearing on Friday for oral arguments.