El Paso, Texas - An 18-month-old toddler was caged by ICE and allegedly denied vital medication despite previously being hospitalized with a near-fatal condition.

Per NBC, the young girl named as Amalia and her parents were detained by ICE in December and sent to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, where hundreds of children are being held.

Her parents reportedly fled Venezuela in 2024 and were living in El Paso, Texas while their asylum case was being processed. They were taken by immigration officials while reporting for a routine check-in.

During her time in ICE detention, Amalia became so unwell that she was rushed to a children's hospital in San Antonio and treated for pneumonia, Covid-19, RSV, and severe respiratory distress.

A federal lawsuit filed on Friday alleges that after days of oxygen treatment, Amalia was discharged and returned to the ICE facility, where she was promptly denied the daily medication she had been prescribed.

"She was at the brink of dying," said Elora Mukherjee, director of Columbia Law School's Immigrants' Rights Clinic.

Mukherjee had filed an emergency challenge in federal court on Friday, seeking Amalia's urgent release. Hours later, she and her family were freed from ICE custody.

"After baby Amalia had been hospitalized for 10 days, ICE thought this baby should be returned to Dilley, where she was denied access to the medicines that the hospital doctors told her she needed," Mukherjee said. "It is so outrageous."