Sisters detained at Logan for 36 hours sent back to Colombia: Lawyer

The latest victims of President Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown are two sisters who were sent back to Colombia after being detained at Boston’s Logan International Airport for 36 hours.

The sisters, 20-year-old Dayana Gomez and Laura Gomez, 11, were immediately detained for questioning by U.S. Customs and Border agents when they arrived in Boston Wednesday to visit their mother and stepfather, Cambridge lawyer Heather Yountz told The Boston Globe.

Only when Laura was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital the following day after she had been suffering severe stomach pain were her mother and stepfather allowed to see them. However, a border agent was posted outside the hospital room and the family was not allowed to use cellphones.

“This is not like anything that I’ve ever seen,” said Yountz, who offered legal assistance to the sisters.

After Laura was treated for her ailment, the sisters returned to Logan for more questioning before being sent back to Colombia on Friday.

“Is this what enhanced screening looks like?” Yountz said, referring to a Trump administration mandate set in place last month that calls for advanced scrutiny of foreigners’ visas.

Yountz said that given Laura’s age and health issue, using “deferred inspection,” which allows visitors to be admitted into the country and return for questioning a few days later, “would have made much more sense.”

This is not the first time since Trump’s crackdown on immigration that a foreigner’s health was not a concern for immigration officials.

Back in February, an undocumented woman from El Salvador was removed from a Texas hospital where she had been waitlisted for brain surgery by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Sara Beltran-Hernandez, 26, was taken back to the detention facility she had been in for two years after being stopped as she tried to reach her mother, who lives in Queens, New York.

After the incident made headlines around the country, Beltran-Hernandez did make her way to New York finally and is expected to live with her mother in Queens, the New York Daily News reported on March 3.