A federal judge stated on Friday that a two-year-old US citizen was deported to Honduras along with her mother. Documents indicate that the Trump administration claims the child’s mother asked officials to take her with her.
US District Judge Terry Doughty reported that the child, identified in court documents as V.M.L., was released in Honduras on Friday afternoon with her mother, whom the judge described as an undocumented immigrant.
Lawyers representing the family filed an emergency petition on Thursday, urging the court to order the “immediate release” of the child by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, asserting that they “lack any statutory or constitutional authority” to detain her as a US citizen, according to the petition.
The petition states that the child was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on January 4, 2023. The child was taken into ICE custody on Tuesday morning with her mother and her 11-year-old sister while the mother was “attending a routine check-in” with the federal agency, the petition details.
“In the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the government just deported a US citizen with no meaningful process,” Judge Doughty stated in the order, scheduling a hearing for May 16 in Monroe, Louisiana.
The judge further emphasized, “It is illegal and unconstitutional to deport, detain for deportation, or recommend deportation of a U.S. citizen,” citing a 2012 deportation case as precedent.
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The federal government, according to Doughty, “contends this is all okay because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her … But the court doesn’t know that.”
The court documents filed by the government in opposition to the petition argued that the child’s mother, “made known to ICE officials she wanted to retain custody of V.M.L.” in a handwritten note and requested for the child to accompany her to Honduras.
Authorities in Honduras, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, lawyers for the family, and the US Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Approximately an hour after the mother and her two daughters entered the agency’s office in New Orleans, the father received a call from the agency stating, “the family had all been taken to the immigration office and gave him an address,” the petition recounts.
Upon arriving at the address, which led him to the ICE field office in New Orleans, officers provided him with a paper indicating the mother was “under their custody” and stated they could not provide any further information but that V.M.L.’s mother “would call him soon,” the petition details.
An ICE officer subsequently contacted the father’s attorney, informing him that the mother’s deportation “was certain and he believed they were all in a hotel” but would not disclose the location, according to the petition. The officer also could not facilitate a legal call between the attorney and the child’s mother.
The same day, the father was again contacted by an ICE officer who stated the mother was in their custody and informed the father that the mother and daughters were going to be deported, court documents revealed. “He heard his daughters crying and his partner crying. He reminded V.M.L.’s mother that their daughter was a US citizen and could not be deported,” the documents state.
Before the father could finish providing the mother with contact information for their attorneys, he heard the ICE officer “take the phone from her and hang up the call,” the petition alleges.
The father then moved to grant provisional custody of his two daughters to his sister-in-law, a US citizen residing in Baton Rouge, and the mandate was notarized in Louisiana, the documents show.
The petition alleges that ICE refused to honor the father’s request to release V.M.L. to the sister-in-law, stating “it was not needed” because the child was already with her mother, and informed the father he would be taken into custody if he attempted to pick her up.
The federal government stated in court documents that the mother wrote in a letter that she “will bring my daughter … with me to Honduras.”
The government further stated that the “man claiming to be V.M.L.’s father” has not presented or identified himself to ICE despite requests to do so, the court documents indicate.
“V.M.L. is not at substantial risk of irreparable harm if kept with her lawful custodian mother,” the government asserted.
