Venezuelan Doctor Rubeliz Bolivar Wins Release on $7,000 Bond After 4 Weeks in Custody
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · May 13
Venezuelan Doctor Rubeliz Bolivar Wins Release on $7,000 Bond After 4 Weeks in Custody
1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · May 13
Rubeliz Bolivar, a 33-year-old Venezuelan emergency-room doctor, was released Wednesday from a Texas immigration detention center after more than four weeks in custody, wearing an ankle monitor.
A $7,000 bond secured her release after she was detained April 11 at a South Texas airport while traveling with her 5-year-old U.S.-citizen daughter to join her husband for an asylum interview in California.
Her case drew condemnation from national and regional medical groups, while supervisors at South Texas Health System in McAllen said losing foreign-born physicians would worsen care in the Rio Grande Valley, a federally designated underserved area.
Video shared by her husband showed Bolivar leaving the detention center in tears as her residency program director escorted her to a car, underscoring the family and professional fallout from the detention.
As Venezuela offers a new amnesty, how can its citizens abroad prove they still face persecution to win U.S. asylum?
With thousands of foreign doctors at risk, how will America's underserved communities cope with a worsening physician shortage?
Are ankle monitors a humane alternative to detention or just a digital prison that harms families and careers?