On Friday, the Trump administration deported three U.S. citizen children to Honduras, including a 4-year-old boy suffering from a rare form of end-stage cancer. The child and his 7-year-old sister, also a U.S. citizen, were deported along with their mother. On the same day, another 2-year-old girl, also a U.S. citizen, was deported to Honduras with her pregnant mother and 11-year-old brother.
In the United States, deportation of U.S. citizens is illegal. Every citizen has the right to remain in the country and to receive constitutional protection. The two mothers and their children were arrested during routine checks with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Louisiana. The mothers, unlike the children, were not residing legally in the country.
According to the families’ lawyers, the mothers were forced to take their U.S.-citizen children with them and were not allowed to communicate with other family members or their lawyers until they arrived in Honduras.
Attorney Gracie Willis, who represents the 2-year-old girl, said the deportation of a U.S. citizen without any opportunity to object or assert a right to remain is unprecedented.
U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointee, also voiced strong criticism, saying the child was deported “without any meaningful process” and adding, “I have never seen anything like this. There was no act of good faith in what happened to these children.”
The cases have raised serious concerns about the effects of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies on mixed-status families in the United States.
