El Paso immigration attorney Carlos Spector flew from Houston to El Paso on an air ambulance Tuesday, and will enter hospice care as he spends the remainder of his life in his beloved hometown. His wife, Sandra Garza Spector, accompanied him on the flight home.
The flight was made possible in part by money raised in a GoFundMe campaign organized by Spector’s daughter, Alejandra Spector. The attorney had been receiving treatment for head and neck cancer at MD Anderson Cancer Treatment Center in Houston, but doctors said there was no treatment available and encouraged him to return home, his daughter said.
“Community is the only thing making this manageable right now. I’m very grateful,” Alejandra Spector said.
The GoFundMe campaign, intended to help the family pay for the cost of the air ambulance and other expenses while Carlos Spector was treated in Houston, had raised more than $30,000 from more than 270 donors as of Tuesday afternoon.
Carlos Spector, 71, has been one of El Paso’s leading immigration attorneys and human rights advocates for four decades. His legal work helped clear the way for some Mexicans displaced by drug violence to win asylum in the United States. He also has focused on asylum cases for Indigenous people from Latin America.
Alejandra Spector, a mental health therapist who works with immigrants, said she and her father have been talking as he transitions out of this life about how to preserve his legacy.
“We’re talking about starting a foundation and he’s going to have a commemoration in about a month, and hopefully he’s still around for that,” she said. “But it’s something that I want to start planting and also telling the people who care about him, because it’s going to take a village.”
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