Two women who were deported to Honduras alongside their US citizen children were held in “complete isolation” and denied any opportunity to coordinate the care and custody of their children before being put on a flight, according to one of the lawyers representing them.
The mothers were unable to contact attorneys or loved ones, and were not allowed the option to transfer the custody of their citizen children to another parent or caregiver, said Gracie Willis, an attorney with the National Immigration Project who is representing one of the families and coordinating with the team representing the other family.
“Here we had moms held completely in isolation, being told what was happening to their children. They didn’t have an opportunity to talk this through, to weigh the pros and cons of taking or leaving their children in the US,” Willis said.
One of the mothers, who was deported with her seven-year-old and her four-year-old, both of whom are citizens, was unable to access medications and care for her youngest, who has a rare form of late-stage cancer.
Another woman, who is pregnant, was put on a plane to Honduras along with her 11-year-old and two-year-old daughters, even as the children’s father and a caretaker designated by the family were desperately trying to contact them.
“She’s in the early stages of a pregnancy and has undergone unimaginable stress,” said Willis. “So she’s trying to ensure her and that unborn child’s safety and health, while also processing and working through what they’ve all been through.”
Both families were detained at regular check-in appointments with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in New Orleans, according to lawyers, and then taken hours away from the city and prohibited from communicating with family members.
Each year, hundreds of thousands of immigrant parents in similar situations, who have both a deportation order and US citizen children, have to choose whether to leave their kids in the US under the care of another family member or guardian, or surrender them to Child Protective Services.
“No parent would want to be in that situation,” Willis said. “And we don’t bring any judgment against any decision that a parent makes.”
But the mothers who were rushed on to deportation flights with their children last week, in high-profile cases that have drawn widespread condemnation from civil rights groups and lawmakers, were not empowered to make any real choices for their families, Willis said.
“There were no real decisions being made here, especially when those parents were not able to communicate with other available caregivers,” she added.
After lawyers for VML, the two-year-old who is identified in court documents by only her initials, filed an emergency motion to prevent the US citizen toddler’s deportation, a federal district judge raised concerns that he had a “strong suspicion that the government just deported a US citizen with no meaningful process”.
A hearing in VML’s case has been scheduled for 18 May. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been claiming that the family’s cases were handled legally and with due process.
Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said: “The children aren’t deported. The mother chose to take the children with her.”
In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, echoed Homan, saying: “I imagine those three US citizen children have fathers here in the United States. They can stay with their father. That’s up to their family to decide where the children go.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
But VML’s father had been desperately trying to reach his partner and retrieve his toddler in the days leading up to the deportation, Willis said.
On 22 April, VML’s mother had been told to bring her children to her check-in with Ice, according to Willis. The father, who had brought them to the check-in appointment, began to worry that the appointment was taking longer than usual – and was later told that his partner and daughters had been detained.
When he was eventually able to speak to them, he could hear his partner and daughter crying on the phone and his call was cut off before he was able to give them a number for the family’s attorneys.
The government told him that it had removal orders for VML’s mother and her 11-year-old sister, who was not born in the US, and that their mother was choosing to also take VML to Honduras with them. They pointed to a handwritten letter, which they say was written by the mother, that reads in Spanish: “I will take my daughter ... with me to Honduras.”
But the family’s lawyers dispute that the letter proves their consent, especially given that the parents weren’t allowed to coordinate VML’s release. They had wanted the toddler to be handed over to a US citizen that the family had chosen to serve as VML’s legal custodian. “The mom was never asked what she wanted. She was told, your child will be deported with you,” Willis said.
Before their deportation, both families had been dutifully complying with Ice orders to regularly check-in.
VML’s mother had arrived at the US southern border during the “remain in Mexico” program instituted during the first Trump administration, which forced non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait south of the border while their cases were processed.
The mother, and her now 11-year-old, had reported to an initial appointment with immigration officials but had been kidnapped in Mexico – and were unable to attend their second immigration hearing. When the mother and daughter managed to return and seek safety in the United States, immigration officials released them into the country on the condition that they regularly check-in – which they had been doing for about four years, according to Willis.
The other woman deported with her children had entered the US as an unaccompanied minor child, and had been issued deportation orders after she failed to report at a hearing that she was not aware was happening, as she never received a summons, Willis said.
