A four-year-old with a rare stage-four cancer was among three children allegedly deported by the Trump administration, despite being U.S. citizens.
The children, aged two, four, and seven, are from two different families and were born in the U.S., but they were taken to Honduras with their mothers on April 25.
The child with cancer was deported without medication or being allowed to talk to their doctor, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said.
Highlights
- Three U.S. citizen children, ages 2, 4, and 7, were deported to Honduras with their mothers despite being born in the U.S.
- A 4-year-old with stage-four cancer was deported without medication or access to their doctor, raising serious health concerns.
- ICE detained the families in New Orleans, then deported them without ensuring continuity of medical or prenatal care for the children.
- A judge criticized the government for deporting a U.S. citizen child without a meaningful process.
- The ACLU and lawyers argue that the mothers lacked the ability to consult co-parents before deportation, violating constitutional rights.
Three children who are U.S. citizens were allegedly deported by ICE
Image credits: Josh Denmark/DHS
Both families were taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in New Orleans last week and transferred to Louisiana, a three-hour drive away.
One of the mothers was pregnant and was deported without ensuring continuity of prenatal care or medical oversight, the ACLU said.
ICE was also notified in advance of the four-year-old child's urgent medical needs.
On Thursday, April 24, the father of the two-year-old filed an emergency petition in court through his lawyers to request her release.
But before the court opened the next morning, the child—identified only as V.M.L.—was put on a plane to Honduras with her mother.
District Judge Terry A. Doughty, who was nominated by U.S. President Donald Trump in 2017 and confirmed by the Senate in 2018, set a hearing date for May 16 to address “suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.”
“The government contends that this is all okay because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her,” Doughty wrote. “But the Court doesn’t know that.”
The government provided the court with a handwritten note from ICE, written in Spanish, that said the mother wanted to take her child with her.
Doughty said this was simply not enough.
The girl’s father was allowed to speak to her mother for about a minute before ICE agents ended the call. He did not hear from them until they got to Honduras, his lawyers said.
Image credits: Democracy Now!
Gracie Willis, the lawyer for V.M.L’s father, said: “These mothers had no opportunity to speak with their co-parents to make the kinds of choices that parents are entitled to make for their children, the kinds of decisions that millions of parents make every day: ‘what is best for our child?’”
“We have absolutely no idea whether they ever actually did give consent for their children to come with them or if they did under what kind of duress and what other options were presented to them,” she added.
Alanah Odoms, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said the deportation was a clear constitutional violation.
“I don’t know how much more of a blatant or clear constitutional violation there can be than deporting U.S. citizens without due process,” she said.
“Especially with some of those citizens being the most vulnerable of all vulnerable children, and not just any children, children with medical conditions that are dire.”
Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said he was not aware of the specific case involving the four-year-old, but added, “No U.S. citizen child was deported.”
“Children aren’t deported, the mother chose to take the child with her,” he told CBS News.
Homan said there had been due process with regard to the cases
Image credits: Face the Nation
“When you enter the country illegally, and you know you’re here illegally, and you choose to have a U.S. citizen child, that’s on you, that’s not on this administration.”
Homan said that having a child in the U.S. was not a “get out of jail free card.”
With regard to the two-year-old child, Homan said there had been due process and the mother had signed documents requesting that the child leave with her.
“You can decide to take that child with you, or you can decide to leave the child here with another relative or spouse,” Homan added.
“It is common that parents want to be removed with their children,” a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told The Washington Post.