Three young children, all US citizens, were deported to Honduras last week alongside their mothers, according to advocacy groups and the families’ lawyers. One of the children, a four-year-old with Stage 4 cancer, was reportedly sent without medication.
Tom Homan, a key figure in Donald Trump’s border policy, defended the action, saying the mothers made the decision to have their citizen children deported with them. “Having a US citizen child does not make you immune from our laws,” he said, adding that the mothers were in the US illegally.
This incident follows the controversy of Trump’s first term, where his administration faced widespread backlash for separating children from their parents. On Friday, officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in New Orleans deported two mothers and their children – aged two, four, and seven—to Honduras, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reported.
The two families, including one with a pregnant mother, had lived in the US for years and were deported under “deeply troubling circumstances” that raise serious due process concerns, the ACLU stated. The advocacy group further claimed that the US citizen child with cancer was deported without access to medical care or consultation with doctors.
In a press conference on Monday, Homan stated that deporting families together was preferable to separating them. “We’re keeping families together,” he said. “What we did was remove children with their mothers who requested the children depart with them. There’s a parental decision.”
Homan rejected the use of the word “deported” in this context, asserting that US citizens cannot be deported. “They weren’t deported. We don’t deport US citizens. Their parents made that decision, not the United States government,” he stated.
A federal judge expressed concerns last week about the process, saying he had a “strong suspicion” that the two-year-old child was removed without a “meaningful process.” This Louisiana-born child and her family were apprehended during a routine immigration appointment on April 22, according to court documents.
Homan defended the process in an interview with CBS Face the Nation on Sunday, emphasizing that the mother had undergone due process in court and that the family was removed following a judge’s order.
A hearing to determine whether the family received due process is scheduled for May 19. The second family involved was detained on April 24, with ICE reportedly failing to respond to requests from the family’s attorneys and relatives, according to the ACLU.
In a separate statement on Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt highlighted the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts, noting that Trump would soon sign two new executive orders aimed at cracking down on immigration. One of these orders would require officials to publish a list of “sanctuary cities,” which limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Leavitt also praised an immigration raid on an “underground nightclub” in Colorado Springs, where over 100 undocumented immigrants were detained, and drugs and weapons were seized. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reported that 114 individuals were arrested and placed “on buses for processing and likely eventual deportation.”
Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025, thousands of undocumented immigrants have been detained as part of his administration’s intensified crackdown on illegal immigration.
