A federal judge sharply criticized the U.S. government Friday, warning that a two-year-old American citizen may have been unlawfully deported to Honduras this week alongside her mother and older sister, all without due process.
Judge Terry Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana wrote in an emergency order that there was “strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process,” according to court documents obtained by CBS News.
The child, identified in filings only as “V.M.L.,” was born in Baton Rouge in January 2023. Her deportation, despite her U.S. citizenship, has sparked outrage and urgent questions about government accountability and immigration enforcement practices.
Efforts to reach the child’s mother late Friday were unsuccessful. Justice Department lawyers informed Judge Doughty that “a call would not be possible” because the mother, and presumably V.M.L., had already been released in Honduras.
The family’s full immigration status remains murky. While the two-year-old is a U.S. citizen, it is unclear whether her mother, sister, and father possess legal status. However, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that “it is common that parents want to be removed with their children.”
The sequence of events leading to the deportation unfolded rapidly and chaotically. On Tuesday morning, the mother and her daughters were detained during a routine Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) check-in in New Orleans, appointments the mother had faithfully attended for four years, often with her daughters by her side.
According to a petition filed by Trish Mack, a friend of the mother, the family had been dropped off at the ICE office by the girls’ father. After the family was taken into custody, ICE agents handed the father paperwork confirming that the mother was under arrest and promised she would “call him soon.”
Alarmed by the sudden detention, the family’s attorney immediately contacted ICE, providing a copy of V.M.L.’s U.S. birth certificate to verify her citizenship. Nevertheless, that evening, an ICE agent informed the father by phone that the mother and daughters would be deported.
In a desperate attempt to keep his daughters in the United States, the father filed a petition for temporary custody on Tuesday, seeking to transfer legal guardianship to his sister-in-law, a U.S. citizen residing in Baton Rouge.
Despite this effort, ICE refused to release V.M.L. into her custodian’s care, arguing it was unnecessary because the child was “already with her mother.” According to court documents, an ICE agent also warned that if the father tried to retrieve the child, he too would be detained.
Now, the government faces intense scrutiny over how a U.S. citizen, a toddler no less, was deported without a hearing, a formal review, or proper notice.
Judge Doughty has scheduled a hearing in the case for May 16.
