U.S. citizen children, including 4-year-old with cancer, deported to Honduras, legal advocates say
Two U.S. citizen children were sent on their mother’s deportation flight to Honduras without the opportunity to speak with attorneys, leaving a 4-year-old boy with Stage 4 cancer without access to his medication, according to the National Immigration Project.
Gracie Willis, an attorney with the organization, told NBC News that the boy and and his 7-year-old sister were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday. They were taken to El Paso, Texas, and flown to Honduras first thing Friday morning, Willis said.
The 4-year-old boy, who was actively receiving treatment for a rare form of cancer, was flown to Honduras without his medication, according to Willis and the National Immigration Project.
Attorneys were preparing a habeas corpus petition when the children were deported on an ICE charter flight before it could be filed, Willis said.
Attorney Erin Hebert, who Willis said is representing the family, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. In a press release by the National Immigration Project, Hebert called the deportation of U.S. children “illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral.”
“The speed, brutality, and clandestine manner in which these children were deported is beyond unconscionable, and every official responsible for it should be held accountable,” Hebert said.
Willis is representing a similar case involving the mother of a 2-year-old U.S. citizen who was deported with her child on Friday.
U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty ordered a hearing in the case, saying it appeared that the government deported a U.S. citizen with “no meaningful due process.”
These incidents are the latest in a string of cases that have raised alarm among immigration advocates. Recent headlines have highlighted U.S. citizens being mistakenly detained by ICE and, in some instances, receiving official paperwork incorrectly telling them to leave the country.
Other cases have underscored fears of procedural errors, including those of Mahmoud Khalil, a U.S. permanent resident who was detained by federal agents without a warrant, and Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to El Salvador despite a court order barring his removal.
In the cases of the young children, both families had fathers residing in the U.S. and were unable to make decisions about their children before they were flown to Honduras, Willis added. The National Immigration Project said the women were in incommunicado detention by ICE, making them unreachable by lawyers or family members.
Legal teams that were able to reach the mothers after their deportations said the women both expressed being given no choice and that they were told their children would come with them, according to Willis.
“Their families are having to make hard choices. … Those are decisions they should have been able to communicate with each other about before all of this happened,” Willis said.
The National Immigration Project has accused ICE of violating its own mandates on the “coordination for the care of minor children with willing caretakers — regardless of immigration status — when deportations are being carried out.”
Both families are taking time to process what has happened, Willis said. The children are U.S. citizens who should be able to return, but their mothers were deported before they were able to pursue their legal options.
Representatives for ICE did not immediately respond to a NBC News request for comment. In the case of the 2-year-old, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the parent made the decision to take the child with them to Honduras.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged the children’s citizenship status on Sunday in an interview with MSNBC’s “Meet the Press,” saying that while everyone on U.S. soil is entitled to due process, individuals in the country illegally “have no right to be here.”
He also described the headlines regarding the children as “misleading,” stating that parents have the choice to decide whether their children are deported with them.
“Three U.S. citizens — ages 4, 7 and 2 — were not deported. Their mothers, who are illegally in this country, were deported,” Rubio said. “The children went with their mothers. Those children are U.S. citizens. They can come back into the United States … but ultimately, who was deported was their mother, their mothers who were here illegally.”
Willis accused the government of “purposefully manipulating facts,” calling it an “absurdity” that ICE was the sole conduit for expressing the mothers’ wishes.
“The public has a right to know about what happened with these children, and we want to make sure this never happens again,” Willis said. “How do we make sure this never happens again when you have Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeating the party line that the mothers wanted this? It’s a lie. It’s untrue.”