Deporting U.S.-citizen children with their mothers

Editor's note: reporting and court filings document the removals and the denial of counsel, but no court has ruled the removals unlawful.

In late April 2025, ICE detained two mothers and their children at routine check-ins near New Orleans and, within a day or two, removed them to Honduras. Three of the children are U.S. citizens, including a four-year-old boy undergoing treatment for stage-4 kidney cancer who was sent without his medication, and a two-year-old girl. The families' lawyers say they were held incommunicado in hotels, denied access to counsel, and given no meaningful chance to arrange for the citizen children to remain in the country; one mother said she signed a note agreeing to take her daughter only after an officer allegedly threatened that the child would otherwise be placed in foster care.

In the case of the two-year-old, identified in court records as V.M.L., a federal judge tried to reach the family before the flight, but they were already in the air. U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump nominee, wrote that it is 'illegal and unconstitutional' to deport a U.S. citizen and set a hearing 'in the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.'

The administration disputed the framing. Border czar Tom Homan said 'the children aren't deported' and that the mothers chose to take them, and government lawyers pointed to a handwritten note from one mother. The families' attorneys said the mothers were never given a genuine choice and were denied contact with counsel, and that the government failed to arrange cancer treatment in Honduras for the four-year-old. More cases followed, including a five-year-old U.S. citizen removed to Honduras in January 2026.