A two-year-old U.S. citizen, identified as V.M.L., left the United States with her deported Honduran mother after the mother chose to take her child with her to Honduras. The child was not deported. U.S. citizens cannot legally be deported, but the mother’s decision to bring her daughter was processed by ICE based on the mother’s verbal and written consent.
The man claiming to be the child’s father, who is a non-citizen, filed an emergency petition to seek custody. However, he failed to present himself to ICE when requested, and the petition came too late to prevent the mother’s departure. Furthermore, he did not have legal custody of the child, so the child remained with the mother, the legal guardian.
Federal Judge Terry Doughty expressed concern that there had been “no meaningful process” to verify the mother’s consent or assess custody options before her removal. A hearing is scheduled for May 16. However, under U.S. law, no trial is necessary to deport non-citizens who violate their terms of residency, and in this case, the mother had provided both verbal and written statements confirming she wanted to take her child with her.
While some media outlets downplay the mother’s consent, suggesting it was insufficient because it was only oral and handwritten, this is misleading. Under U.S. law, oral and written consent are both fully legitimate, especially in immigration and family law matters involving minor children. There is no requirement that consent be notarized, signed before a judge, or witnessed by a lawyer for a voluntary departure. In fact, ICE obtaining a handwritten statement alongside verbal consent is more careful than what is typically required.
Although the child, as a U.S. citizen, technically had the right to remain, doing so would have meant becoming a ward of the government and possibly stuck in legal limbo—an outcome few parents would wish on their child. According to a 2011 report from the Applied Research Center (ARC), later confirmed by the Migration Policy Institute and the American Immigration Council, 85% to 95% of deported parents choose to take their U.S. citizen children with them to keep the family together.
The mother’s decision to bring her baby was entirely normal and consistent with what most parents do. There is no evidence of coercion or improper pressure. The media’s suggestion that she was “pressured” makes no sense: pressured into what? Into keeping her own child with her? It is emotional spin designed to make the situation seem worse than it was.
Approximately 10.6 million U.S.-born children under the age of 18 live with at least one undocumented parent. The parents of these children, often referred to as part of “mixed-status families,” often have no legal right to stay in the country. Liberals see this as proof that a pathway to citizenship for the parents should be established and facilitated, while those who support law and order recognize that creating such a pathway would only incentivize more illegal immigration and the birthing of so-called “anchor babies.”
The media often misrepresents the facts in these cases to generate outrage. In the García case, for example, early media coverage led many Americans to believe that President Trump had deported a U.S. citizen simply for wearing a Chicago Bulls hat, and that he had been arbitrarily sent to a gulag in Australia. In reality, García had no legal status in the U.S. and was properly deported to his country of citizenship, El Salvador, after two separate judges ruled that his residency was invalidated by his membership in MS-13. Both judges specifically stated they rejected the hat story and based their rulings on other evidence, including confidential informants.
More recently, media falsely claimed that Trump had deported a number of U.S. citizen children with cancer. The facts do not support this accusation. Under U.S. law, citizen children cannot be deported. In the cases described, undocumented parents were deported, and their citizen children left with them voluntarily, not a deportation of U.S. citizens. No deportation orders were issued against citizen children, and no law was violated by their departure alongside their parents. The Rolling Stone headline is simply political propaganda.
Meanwhile, some U.S. lawmakers and judges, such as Judge Hannah Dugan (recently arrested for obstructing ICE operations), have decided on their own to violate immigration law out of what they consider “compassion,” taking it upon themselves to “keep families together.” But they are missing the point: responsible parents do not bring their children with them when committing crimes, knowing full well the consequences. When parents break the law, they face jail or deportation. It is the parents who are tearing families apart—not the Trump administration, and not ICE.
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