TRAGIC SERIES OF EVENTS

Asylum Seeker’s Hands Almost Froze Off in Texas Storm. Now He Fears Deportation.

“I wanted to die,” Douglas, who is seeking asylum in the U.S., told The Los Angeles Times.

A Guatemalan asylum seeker who was caught in the snowstorm that swept Texas earlier this month is in an El Paso hospital waiting to hear whether his hands will be amputated and whether he will be deported, The Los Angeles Times reports. Douglas, who declined to share his last name for safety reasons, was crossing into the U.S. with a group of migrants when the storm hit. A smuggler had abandoned the group, who didn’t have any winter gear. Douglas got frostbite in both his hands and was eventually taken to a hospital. “I wanted to die,” he told the Times.

His lawyer is fighting for him to be released to his father who is in the U.S. Douglas is one of many people who haven’t been allowed to apply for asylum during the pandemic due to a Trump-era rule that essentially paused the process. So far, President Biden has not revoked the rule. The ACLU has sued the federal government, calling the policy “unlawful.”