A dispute has erupted over the deportation of three young American citizens—a two-year-old, a four-year-old battling stage IV cancer, and a seven-year-old—along with their mothers from a Louisiana facility.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio vehemently denied accusations that the children were deported without proper legal procedures, labeling the claims as “misleading.” He asserted that the mothers, who were in the country without authorization, voluntarily chose to leave the United States with their children.
According to a report by The Washington Post, the families—comprising two separate households—were removed on Friday. The family’s lawyer contends that the four-year-old’s mother has been cut off from medical care for her child and the situation is dire.
“That’s a misleading headline,” Rubio stated. “Three U.S. citizens, aged 4, 7, and 2 were not deported. Their mothers were legally deported, and the children went with their mothers. They can come back to their father or someone who wants to assume them. Ultimately, it was the mothers who were here illegally. You guys make it sound like ICE kicked down the door and grabbed the child and threw them on an airplane, and it’s misleading and that is not true.”
However, U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty, a Trump appointee, expressed serious concerns about the government’s account of events. Responding to an emergency order filed by the father of the two-year-old girl, the judge issued an order stating his “strong 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, but the court doesn’t know that,” Doughty wrote.
Lawyers representing the families claim the father of the two-year-old girl was only granted a brief one-minute phone conversation with his daughter before immigration agents abruptly terminated the call. Subsequently, both mother and child were transported to Honduras the following morning.
Rubio maintained that deportations targeted individuals residing in the country unlawfully and emphasized that the children would be welcome back if their fathers or another suitable guardian stepped forward to assume responsibility for them.
“If someone is in this country unlawfully, illegally, that person gets deported,” Rubio explained. “If that person is with a 2-year-old child and says I want to take my child with me, then you have two choices. You can say yes, of course, you can take your child whether they’re a citizen or not, because it is your child. Or say yes, you can go, but your child must stay behind. And then your headlines would read U.S. holding hostage 2-year-old, 4-year-old, 7 -year-old while mother deported.”
The case highlights a complex legal and ethical dilemma regarding the rights of children born in the United States when their parents face immigration proceedings.
