US government deports two-year-old citizen 'with no meaningful process'

The United States government has deported a two-year-old citizen to Honduras "with no meaningful process," according to a US federal judge.

US District Judge Terry Doughty said the girl, who was identified in court papers by the initials “V.M.L.”, was deported on Friday along with her Honduran-born mother, Jenny Carolina Lopez Villela.

The child’s father was petitioning the courts to keep her in the country.

“It is illegal and unconstitutional to deport, detain for deportation, or recommend deportation of a US citizen,” the judge said.

He also scheduled a hearing for May 19 “in the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the government just deported a US citizen with no meaningful process.”

The child had been with her mother and older sister during a regular immigration check-in at the New Orleans office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday when US immigration officials detained them and queued them up for deportation.

V.M.L.’s father reportedly spoke to the infant’s mother, hearing her and the child cry. He reminded Villela that their daughter was a US citizen “and could not be deported.”

He also said that ICE allowed the two to speak for about one minute on Tuesday, but that they were unable to make any meaningful decisions about their child.

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The court battle ignited Thursday when lawyers for the family filed an emergency petition in the Western District of Louisiana seeking V.M.L.’s immediate release from ICE custody and a declaration that the girl’s detention had been unlawful.

The petition was filed under the name of Trish Mack, who the lawyers indicated had been asked by V.M.L.’s father to act as the child’s custodian and take her home from ICE custody.

ICE officials claimed in court that Villela wished to take V.M.L. with her to Honduras. They said that the filing included a handwritten note in Spanish that they claimed was written by the mother and confirmed her intent. But the judge said he had hoped to verify that information.

“The Government contends that this is all okay because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her,” Doughty wrote. “But the Court doesn’t know that.”

The US judge said he tried to investigate the emergency matter himself, seeking to discuss the issue with V.M.L.’s mother on the phone to determine whether ICE’s argument about her desire to bring V.M.L. to Honduras was accurate.

The judge said he was “independently aware” that the plane he believed was carrying the family was already “above the Gulf of America.”

Trump administration officials called the judge on Friday and said a phone call with the child’s mother is not feasible “because she (and presumably the child) had just been released in Honduras,” the judge wrote. 

“It is therefore in V.M.L.’s best interest that she remains in the lawful custody of her mother,” Trump administration lawyers said in a filing on Friday.

“V.M.L. is not at risk of irreparable harm because she is a US citizen,” they added.

V.M.L. is not prohibited from entering the US, prosecutors added.

The American Civil Liberties Union described V.M.L,’s case -and another similar - as a “shocking ... abuse of power.”

“These actions stand in direct violation of ICE’s own written and informal directives, which mandate coordination for the care of minor children with willing caretakers – regardless of immigration status – when deportations are being carried out,” it said.

Trump said earlier this month that he would deport some violent criminals who are US citizens to El Salvadoran prisons.

The comment alarmed civil rights advocates and is viewed by many legal scholars as unconstitutional.

The US Supreme Court has challenged Trump’s administration on a separate case, ordering the US government to  “facilitate and effectuate” the return of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to the country on March 15 despite an order protecting him from deportation.

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