An 18-year-old U.S. citizen has been living alone in his family's Texas home since February 2025, after immigration authorities removed his five siblings and undocumented parents to Mexico, interrupting his 11-year-old sister's treatment for a rare brain tumor. The family was detained at a mandatory Border Patrol checkpoint in Texas while traveling to the hospital and deported the next day, despite previously passing through the checkpoint with hospital and attorney letters. The family has been waiting since June for a decision on a humanitarian parole request to allow the girl to return with her parents for treatment. The teen attended the State of the Union as a guest of Rep. Adriano Espaillat to advocate for his family's return, describing a year of loneliness that he compared to being 'trapped in a coffin.'