Three American children – legal United States citizens – were deported to Honduras from their home in Louisiana.
Two families were deported, both consisting of a mother and two daughters. For the first family, the mother had a deportation order, while both daughters, aged 4 and 7, were citizens. The 4-year-old has been reported to have cancer.
For the second family, deported the next day (April 25), the mother and older daughter had deportation orders, while the 2-year-old younger daughter is a legal citizen.
ICE claims that the second mother chose to have her 2-year-old deported alongside her. The mother released a statement from Honduras, saying she was not given a choice and was instructed on what to do.
In response, a U.S. district judge slammed the deportation process for lacking “meaningful process.” The families of the children are seeking legal action, with their attorney describing the situation as “shocking, surprising, and deeply troubling.”
Gracie Willis, an attorney with the National Immigration Project, has expressed outrage over the deportations. “This is a family that did have legal options available to them, and because of ICE’s actions, those options were not able to be pursued.”
Willis went on to further emphasize her disagreement with ICE’s actions, saying, “It’s completely unlawful for ICE, an immigration agency, to detain or deport a U.S. citizen,” and “these mothers were deprived of communication and any real alternatives by ICE.”
Raed Gonzalez, an immigration attorney not associated with the case, expressed his own concerns: “It’s the trauma, the situation that involves everybody, is the way this is being handled. The government has this pressure by the Trump administration to deport, deport, deport, and all the humanitarian concerns around this are gone.”
