U.S. border agents turned away a 6-year-old child with Down syndrome and a heart condition seeking to enter the U.S. for medical treatment and court proceedings, according to an immigration lawyer and doctor who accompanied her from Matamoros, Mexico, on Thursday morning.

The girl, who is not being named, traveled from Central America with her mother and 8-year-old brother to the U.S. border, where they sought asylum. But like more than 54,000 other asylum-seekers, they were told to wait in Mexico for their court date under a controversial program known as Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP. She risks ending up in a camp near the border in Matamoros, Mexico, with more than 2,500 other immigrants, where diseases spread quickly.

The girl is pale and has poor blood circulation, according to Kim Hunter, an immigration lawyer volunteering with Lawyers for Good Government. She gets tired when she plays and can only speak in two- or three-word sentences, according to Marie DeLuca, a doctor who is volunteering at a clinic in Matamoros.

A specialist in Philadelphia has agreed to evaluate and treat the girl, lawyers said, but border agents would have to allow her into the U.S. first.