
Three young US citizen children, including a four-year-old with Stage 4 cancer, were deported to Honduras with their mothers last week, according to advocacy groups and family lawyers.
The child with cancer was reportedly sent without medication, a lawyer for the family stated. Border czar Tom Homan defended the actions, saying the mothers chose for their citizen children to be removed with them. “Having a US citizen child does not make you immune from our laws,” he said, noting the mothers were in the US illegally.
This occurs as Trump faces scrutiny for his immigration policies, having previously faced backlash during his first term for separating thousands of children from their parents.
The deportations took place Friday when New Orleans Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials removed two mothers and three children aged two, four, and seven to Honduras from Louisiana, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The families, including one pregnant mother, had lived in the US for years and were “deported under deeply troubling circumstances that raise serious due process concerns,” the ACLU stated. The advocacy group alleged the child with metastatic cancer was deported without opportunity to consult doctors.
At a Monday news conference, Homan emphasized keeping families together was better than separation. “We’re keeping families together. What we did was remove children with their mothers who requested the children depart with them. There’s a parental decision.”
Homan rejected characterizing the children’s removal as deportation. “They weren’t deported. We don’t deport US citizens. Their parents made that decision, not the United States government,” he said.
A federal judge expressed “strong suspicion” that one of the deported children, a two-year-old citizen, was sent away with “no meaningful process.” Court documents show the Louisiana-born child and family were apprehended during a routine appointment at a New Orleans immigration office on April 22.
In a CBS Face the Nation interview, Homan countered that “the judge was due process,” adding the two-year-old’s mother “had due process at great taxpayer expense and was ordered by an immigration judge after those hearings.” A hearing is scheduled May 19 for the government to address whether the family received due process.
The second family was detained April 24, with ICE allegedly refusing to respond to attorneys’ and family members’ contact requests, according to the ACLU.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt highlighted the administration’s immigration enforcement during its first 100 days. She announced Trump would sign two executive orders, including one directing officials to publish a list of “sanctuary cities” – places limiting assistance to federal immigration authorities.
Leavitt also referenced an immigration raid at a Colorado Springs “underground” nightclub Sunday, where officials reportedly detained over 100 undocumented immigrants and seized weapons and drugs. The Drug Enforcement Administration stated that 114 immigrants were arrested and placed “on buses for processing and likely eventual deportation.”
Thousands of undocumented immigrants have been detained since Trump returned to office on January 20.
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