14-year-old U.S. citizen fights leukemia in the US without her Mexican noncitizen mom, who is not allowed to cross the border

A 14-year-old girl is battling leukemia in the United States while her mother has been denied entry into the United States from Mexico and cannot be with her during her treatment.“This is about my mother. I want her to come here to take care of me because I need her,” Ixcell Sandoval Perez said in a video shared by Solidarity Now, the immigration rights advocacy group fighting on her behalf. “It’s not easy to be here without her.”

Ixcell was born in North Carolina but returned to Mexico around nine years ago with her family, Cole Miller, founding director of Solidarity Now, told “Good Morning America.”

She was diagnosed with leukemia last year and was treated in Tapachula, Chiapas, where her family lives, according to Miller.

When her leukemia relapsed earlier this summer, Ixcell and her mom, Dalia Lorenza Perez, traveled four days by bus to the border crossing at Tijuana, Mexico, in hopes of being allowed into the U.S. to seek treatment.

In a video shared by Solidarity Now, Perez describes being held with her daughter by border officials in a small room overnight before being turned away from entering the United States.  “I made a declaration and they asked me if I was seeking political asylum, if someone was trying to kill or persecute me,” Perez recalled. “I said, ‘No, the only reason I want to enter the United States is my daughter’s illness. She has leukemia and I brought all the papers.”

Soon after Ixcell and her mom were denied entry, a relative who is a legal, permanent resident in the U.S. traveled to the border and was able to help Ixcell legally cross into the U.S., according to Miller.

Ixcell then began treatment for relapsed leukemia at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

Miller is now leading a team of legal aid and immigration advocacy groups working to get humanitarian parole for Perez, which would allow her to be paroled into the United States. for a temporary period.

While Ixcell and her mom await a decision, strangers from two local churches have rallied to be by Ixcell’s side.