Children who are US citizens — including one with cancer — deported

April 27, 2025

admin Published: April 27, 2025 | Updated: April 27, 2025 5 minutes read

By Dakin Andone, CNN

(CNN) — Three children who are US citizens were deported to Honduras with their mothers last week, including a 4-year-old receiving treatment for metastatic cancer, according to the families’ attorneys and civil rights and immigration advocacy organizations.

In one case, a mother was deported with her 2-year-old, while the other involves another mother deported with her 4- and 7-year-olds, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Project, among other organizations, said in a news release Friday.

All were detained when the women attended routine meetings with officials in Louisiana as part of the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, or ISAP, according to their attorneys and court records.

Taken together, the families’ advocates say their removals from the United States underscore concerns about a lack of due process amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

“We are seeing in real time due process eroded,” said Gracie Willis, a lawyer and the raids response coordinator at the National Immigration Project, who represents the 2-year-old through a family friend acting as the petitioner in the ongoing court case. “That is deeply concerning and these cases are an illustration of that.”

CNN has reached out to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment.

CNN previously reported on the case of the 2-year-old — identified in court records as V.M.L. — who was taken into custody by ICE Tuesday with her mother and 11-year-old sister while “attending a routine check-in,” according to an emergency petition filed in federal court.

The judge said the mother was undocumented but set a hearing for May 16 regarding the child’s deportation, noting “It is illegal and unconstitutional to deport, detain for deportation, or recommend deportation of a U.S. citizen,” citing a 2012 deportation case.

The second case is a close echo: The mother was detained Thursday after she took her children to an ISAP check-in in Saint Rose, just outside New Orleans, according to her attorney, Erin Hebert. The mother, who has lived in south Louisiana for more than a decade but did not have lawful status, was asked to bring the two children and their passports to the appointment, Hebert told CNN Sunday.

On their arrival, however, Hebert said she was not allowed to accompany the family to the meeting. About 20 to 30 minutes later, Hebert was informed the family had been detained, but officials refused to tell her where they were taken.

Hebert later learned after speaking with her client, two ICE officers were waiting for the family at the appointment, she told CNN.

Hebert then went to ICE’s New Orleans field office, where she said she filed a stay of removal she had prepared in advance of her client’s meeting, hoping to keep them in the country. Over the course of the day, she repeatedly contacted the office to ask where they were being held but said she was not given a response.

Early Friday morning, the family was placed on a plane, Hebert said, and taken to Honduras.

“My clients were deported within 24 hours of being detained with no access to me,” Hebert said.

Attorney disputes government claim of handwritten note

According to Willis, both women had removal orders issued in their absence, meaning they had missed a court proceeding about their immigration cases and a judge subsequently issued a deportation order.

“Something prevented them from being present at one single court date,” Willis said, “and because of that, the judge entered an order of deportation for them.”

In court filings, the government said the mother of the 2-year-old had requested to take her child with her to Honduras, citing a handwritten note purportedly written by the mother in Spanish. Trump border czar Tom Homan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both echoed the claim in interviews Sunday morning.

“If someone’s in this country unlawfully, illegally, that person gets deported. If that person is with a 2-year-old child, or has a 2-year-old child and says, ‘I want to take my child … with me,’ well then … you have two choices,” Rubio said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“You can say, yes, of course. You can take your child, whether they’re a citizen or not, because it’s your child,” Rubio said, “or you can say, yes, you can go, but your child must stay behind.”

Willis, however, rejected the suggestion that V.M.L.’s mother, who is also pregnant,wanted to take her child to Honduras. The handwritten note, she said, “is not a statement of desire.”

Willis denied either mother was given a choice, telling CNN Sunday both wanted their children to remain in the United States. The 4-year-old, for instance, was still receiving cancer treatment, Willis noted. Additionally, both women had family in the United States, according to Willis and Hebert.

“These are mothers, these are pregnant women. These are children,” Alanah Odoms, the executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana told CNN Sunday.“These are people with terminally ill or very serious medical conditions who were law-abiding residents, who were checking in with ICE as they had been instructed to do under orders of supervision.”

“If ICE can do this to these mothers and these children, if ICE can do this to students on college campuses … none of us are safe from this kind of lawlessness,” she said.