A 9-year-old with special medical needs has spent over a week locked inside a federal detention facility in Havre, Montana, not because of anything the child did, but because immigration agents took the child's father into custody without a judicial warrant on August 11, 2026.

The child, who has lived in Billings for three years and attends elementary school there, was swept up alongside their father, Adrián Espinoza De La Cruz. According to a petition filed in the U.S. District Court of Montana, agents did not have a warrant when they made the arrest, and only obtained one after the family had already been taken into custody. The child has medical appointments on the calendar requiring bloodwork and an ultrasound — appointments scheduled months in advance that detention now threatens to disrupt.

"We are appalled to witness the federal government using its immense power not only to unlawfully take and detain adult Montanans, but to grab children from our streets," said Andres Haladay, a senior staff attorney with Upper Seven Law representing the family, according to the Daily Montanan.

The family's court petition argues that detention is only justified when it prevents someone from fleeing or protects the community from harm, and asks how either could apply to a 9-year-old. The facility holding them reportedly lacks basic amenities like proper bedding.

No child should be held in a Border Patrol station over an arrest their own government admits did not follow the law. Sign the petition to demand this child's immediate release — before another day passes in a cell they should never have been in.