El Salvador President Pleads to US Embassy to Grant Visa so Young Girl Can Save Sister's Life
El Salvador’s President has pleaded to the United States embassy for it to grant a humanitarian visa to a girl wanting to enter the U.S. to help her little sister who is waiting for a bone marrow transplant.
Giselle, 7, lives with her maternal grandmother in El Salvador and had her visa application denied twice. Moved by the serious situation, the president of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes, has approached the U.S. Embassy to offer his intercession.
“I will make a call of conscience for the authorities to grant the visa that is reasonably humanitarian. The girl is not going to a tour,” said Funes according to the Spanish-language publication Univision.
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Yarelis Bonilla, who waits for the transplant, is a 5-year-old girl who has been diagnosed with leukemia and is undergoing chemotherapy sessions at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, in New Jersey.
While Yarelis endures chemotherapy sessions, she continues to appeal for a visa to allow her sister Giselle, who is a perfect match donor for a bone-marrow transplant, into the States.
However, the U.S. State Department has denied her the visa for a second time, fearing that she will not return back to El Salvador.
Marian Habib, the family’s lawyer, told New Jersey’s Star-Ledger that Giselle is getting a petition that may convince the embassy that she will return to El Salvador after the transplant.
Habib has said that “it’s a race against time.”
The family of Yarelis has insisted that the operation cannot be carried out in El Salvador as the country cannot provide the medical care needed. And as time passes, Yareli’s mother is wondering what the future holds.
“She has changed a lot. She’s a very sad girl,” her mother Maria said of Yarelis, according to Latino Fox News.
Attorney for the Defense of Human Rights in El Salvador stated that if the child dies, the State will be responsible as it denied the visa. He describes the denial as “unfair.”
“What if that child in U.S. dies? Then the state could be responsible as it denied the visa, which for me is unfair,” said Oscar Luna, according to Univision.
The family is ready to travel and waits for a reply from the U.S. embassy, which has yet to show any sign of granting the visa.
