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The Trump administration appeared to have deported a two-year-old US citizen “with no meaningful process”, a federal judge said on Friday, as the child’s father sought to have her returned to the United States.
It is the latest example of the White House cracking down on documented immigrants, including green card holders and also even citizens who have the status by birth or naturalization. The unorthodox policy and the frequent avoidance of due process has brought about a clash with the judicial branch of the US government in a battle over the constitution.
US district judge Terry Doughty in Monroe, Louisiana, said the girl, who was referred to as VML in court documents, was deported with her mother.
“It is illegal and unconstitutional to deport, detain for deportation, or recommend deportation of a US citizen,” said the judge.
He scheduled a hearing for 19 May “in the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the government just deported a US citizen with no meaningful process”.
VML was apprehended by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) on Tuesday with her mother, Jenny Carolina Lopez Villela, and older sister when Villela attended a routine appointment at its New Orleans office, according to a filing by Trish Mack, who said the child’s father asked her to act as the child’s custodian.
Immigrants of all sorts with cases in process, pending appeals or parole, have routinely been required to regularly check in with Ice officers, sometimes for many years. And so long as they had not violated any regulations or committed any crimes, they were usually sent on their way with little problem. Now, as the Trump administration pushes for the mass arrest and deportation of immigrants, these once routine check-ins have become increasingly fraught.
According to Mack, when VML’s father briefly spoke to Villela, he could hear her and the children crying. During that time, according to a court document, he reminded her that their daughter was a US citizen “and could not be deported”.
However, prosecutors said Villela, who has legal custody, told Ice that she wanted to retain custody of the girl and have her go with her to Honduras. They said the man claiming to be VML’s father had not presented himself to Ice despite requests to do so.
“It is therefore in VML’s best interest that she remain in the lawful custody of her mother,” Trump administration officials said in a filing on Friday. “Further, VML is not at risk of irreparable harm because she is a US citizen.” VML is not prohibited from entering the US, prosecutors added.
The Department of Homeland Security and the justice department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) described VML’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,” the advocacy organization said.
Donald Trump, whose presidential campaigns have focused heavily on immigration, said earlier this month he wanted to deport some violent criminals who are US citizens to El Salvadoran prisons, where he removed hundreds of Venezuelans and some Salvadorans last month without even a court hearing. He sent them to a brutal prison for suspected gangsters and terrorists, claiming they were all violent criminals when it has since been argued that most were not and even if they were they had the right to due process.
The comments from Trump about sending US citizens or what he termed “home grown” criminals to another country to be incarcerated have alarmed civil rights advocates and is viewed by many legal scholars as unconstitutional.
The US supreme court has ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate and effectuate” the return of Maryland resident Kilmar Ábrego García, who was sent to the country on 15 March with hundreds of others despite a US court order protecting him from deportation.
Reuters contributed reporting
