Two American citizen children were sent on their mother’s deportation flight to Honduras without the opportunity to talk to lawyers, leaving a 4 -year -old boy with cancer in stage 4 without access to their medicine, according to the National Immigration Project.
Gracie Willis, a lawyer of the organization, told NBC News that the 7 -year -old boy and sister were arrested for the United States immigration and customs application on Thursday. They were taken to El Paso, Texas, and flew to Honduras early Friday morning, said Willis.
The 4 -year -old boy, who was actively receiving treatment for a rare form of cancer, was transferred to Honduras without his medicine, according to Willis and the National Immigration Project.
The lawyers were preparing An habeas corpus request when the children were deported on an ice charter flight before they could appear, said Willis.
The lawyer Erin Hebert, who Willis said he represents the family, did not respond to multiple requests for comments. In a press release of the National Immigration Project, Hebert called the deportation of “illegal, unconstitutional and immoral” American children.
“The speed, brutality and the clandestine way in which these children were deported is beyond the inconceivable, and all the officials responsible for it must be responsible,” said Hebert.
Willis represents a similar case that involves the mother of a 2 -year -old American citizen who was deported with his son on Friday.
The United States district judge, Terry Doughty, ordered a hearing in the case, saying that it seemed that the government deported an American citizen without “without significant process.”
These incidents are the last in a series of cases that have lent alarm among immigration defenders. Recent holders have highlighted American citizens who are being erroneously arrested for ICE and, in some cases, received official documents that incorrect them that they leave the country.
Other cases have underlined the fears of procedural errors, including those of Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident of the United States who was arrested by federal agents without a court order, and Kilmar Abrego García, who was sent to El Salvador despite a court order that provides for his removal.
In the cases of young children, both families had parents who resided in the US. And they could not make decisions about their children before being transferred to Honduras, Willis added. The National Immigration Project said women were in detention of incommunicado by ICE, making them wireless by lawyers or relatives.
The legal teams that could reach the mothers after their deportations said that both women expressed that they had no other option and that they told them that their children would come with them, according to Willis.
“Their families have to make difficult decisions … Those are decisions that they should have been able to communicate with each other before all this happened,” said Willis.
The National Immigration Project has accused ICE of violating their own mandates on the “coordination for the care of minor children with caregivers willing, regardless of their immigration status, when deportations are carried out.”
Both families take the time to process what has happened, said Willis. Children are US citizens who should be able to return, but their mothers were deported before they can follow their legal options.
ICE representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comments from NBC News. In the case of the 2 -year -old, the spokeswoman for the National Security Department, Tricia McLaughlin, said the father made the decision to bring the child with them to Honduras.
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, acknowledged the state of children’s citizenship on Sunday in an interview with “Meet The Press” of MSNBC, saying that while everyone on the American soil is entitled to due process, people in the country illegally “have no right to be here.”
He also described the headlines regarding children as “deceitful”, stating that parents have the option of deciding if their children are deported with them.
“Three American citizens, of 4, 7 and 2 years, were not deported. Their mothers, who are illegally in this country, were deported,” said Rubio. “The children were with their mothers. Those children are US citizens. They can return to the United States … but finally, who was deported was their mother, their mothers who were illegally here.”
Willis accused the government of “manipulating facts”, describing it as “absurd” that ice was the only duct to express the wishes of mothers.
“The public has the right to know what happened to these children, and we want to make sure that this never happens again,” said Willis. “How do we make sure that this never happens again when you have the Secretary of State Frame Rubio repeating the line of the party that the mothers wanted this? It is a lie. It is false.”
