In August 2025, posts on social media sites like Reddit and Facebook claimed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers had detained a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy while she was recovering from gallbladder surgery in a hospital. The claim was placed next to an X post from the official ICE account claiming that the agency "doesn't make arrests at sensitive locations like hospitals, schools, or churches except in the case of a serious public safety threat."
Snopes readers searched the site looking for more information about the claim.
We found that the claim was based on a real event — from October 2017. News outlets including NPR and The New York Times reported on the incident, and the ACLU filed a lawsuit. Snopes also found the purportedly hypocritical X post by ICE, which was posted on Oct. 26, 2017, a day after the Times' reported was published.
However, the girl was detained by Customs and Border Protection officers, not ICE agents. Therefore, the claim is a mixture of truth and falsehood.
The case
According to the New York Times report, Rosa Maria Hernandez was brought over the U.S.-Mexico border without documentation when she was 3 months old, to live in Laredo, Texas. NPR reported that Hernandez's mother said she crossed the border in search of better medical care for her daughter.
On Oct. 24, 2017, an ambulance was taking Rosa Maria, then 10 and accompanied by her adult cousin, from Laredo to a children's hospital in Corpus Christi for an emergency gallbladder surgery. Border Patrol agents stopped the ambulance at an inland checkpoint, discovered Rosa Maria was in the country illegally and followed the ambulance to the hospital. (The New York Times reported that Rosa Maria's parents did not accompany her because they also were in the U.S. illegally and feared being detained at such a checkpoint).
The family's lawyer, Leticia Gonzales, told NPR that agents "insisted the door to her hospital room be left open at all times to keep an eye on her." When Rosa Maria was discharged, doctors recommended she be released to "a family member who is familiar with her medical and psychological needs." The agency instead transported her to a juvenile detention facility in San Antonio that holds migrant children who arrive in the United States, more than 150 miles from Laredo. She also was put into deportation hearings.
The ACLU sued the government to secure her release, and she was released to her family on Nov. 3, 2017.
The sensitive locations policy
At the time Rosa Maria was detained, the Department of Homeland Security maintained a "sensitive locations policy," a form of which had been in place since President Bill Clinton's administration. That policy required agents to "exercise sound judgement when making detentions at sensitive locations, including schools, churches, hospitals, funerals and protests.
Under the administration of President Barack Obama, for instance, all proposed ICE actions near such locations required explicit approval from higher-ups unless it fell into one of the following categories:
- the enforcement action involves a national security or terrorism matter;
- there is an imminent risk of death, violence, or physical harm to any person or property;
- the enforcement action involves the immediate arrest or pursuit of a dangerous felon, terrorist suspect, or any other individual(s) that present an imminent danger to public safety; or
- there is an imminent risk of destruction of evidence material to an ongoing criminal case.
That policy continued under President Donald Trump's first administration, from 2017-21, according to an archived Department of Homeland Security website.
The Border Patrol told NPR that Rosa Maria was apprehended at the checkpoint, not the hospital, meaning she was not apprehended at a sensitive location.
DHS policy changed in 2025
The sensitive locations policy was expanded under President Joe Biden's administration to include places "where children gather," "social services establishment[s]," and places "where disaster or emergency response and relief is being provided." That policy aimed to avoid ICE and CBP actions in such areas "to the fullest extent possible," but maintained the full list of exceptions.
But in January 2025, just days after Trump retook office, his administration fully revoked the sensitive locations policy.
On Jan. 20, the DHS website issued a new directive that superseded the Biden administration's policies. That directive noted that "officers frequently apply enforcement discretion to balance a variety of interests, including the degree to which any law enforcement action occurs in a sensitive location," and called for them to "continue to use that discretion along with a healthy dose of common sense."
The following day, the directive was updated to allow agents to operate in civil courthouses "when they have credible information that leads them to believe the targeted alien(s) is or will be present at a specific location, and where such action is not precluded by laws imposed by the jurisdiction in which the civil immigration enforcement action will take place."
On Jan. 30, a new directive was issued clarifying that "DHS is not issuing rules regarding where immigration laws are permitted to be enforced," and delegated that responsibility to assistant field office directors and assistant special agents in charge.