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US: ICE deports 3 American children, say lawyers

Srinivas Mazumdaru with AP, AFP
April 27, 2025

Immigration officials in the United States have in recent days deported three children aged 2, 4 and 7 who are US citizens along with their Honduran-born mothers, their lawyers said.

People whose faces are blurred in the back of a van and an officer in a Police ICE jacket looks at them
The Trump administration promised the deportation of illegal migrants but US citizens have also been deportedImage: The Wichita Eagle/ZUMA Press/picture alliance

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have deported three American children aged 2, 4 and 7 along with their undocumented immigrant mothers, their lawyers said on Saturday.

The deportations, which took place from the southern US state of Louisiana, come amid the Trump administration's push to carry out mass expulsions of undocumented migrants.

The National Immigration Project said the deportations were hastily ordered and carried out in the early hours of Friday.

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'Horrifying and baffling'

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a separate statement that the deportations are "illegal and inhumane."

One of the US children removed from the country has "a rare form of metastatic cancer" and was deported without medication or medical consultations, the ACLU said.

Gracie Willis of the National Immigration Project said the mothers weren't given a fair opportunity to decide whether they wanted the children to remain in the United States.

"What we saw from ICE over the last several days is horrifying and baffling. Families have been ripped apart unnecessarily," she said. "We should be gravely concerned that ICE has been given tacit approval to both detain and deport US citizen children."

Willis said the 4-year-old and the 7-year-old were deported to Honduras within a day of being arrested with their mother.

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Judge sets hearing over 2-year-old's deportation

In the case involving the 2-year-old, a federal judge in Louisiana raised questions about the deportation of the girl, highlighting that it is illegal to deport a US citizen.

The judge set a May 16 hearing "in the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the government just deported a US citizen with no meaningful process."

The Trump administration has recently  clashed with federal judges and rights groups who have criticized its deportation policies, saying that they are trampling or ignoring migrants' constitutional rights.

The White House has also defied a Supreme Court ruling that the Trump administration must "facilitate" the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.

On Friday, federal agents even arrested a US judge in Wisconsin for allegedly shielding an undocumented migrant.

In a social media post Saturday, Trump dismissed due judicial process around deportations, saying: "It is not possible to have trials for millions and millions of people."

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Edited by: Sean Sinico

Srinivas Mazumdaru Editor and reporter focusing on business, geopolitics and current affairs
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