US deports 3 American children, including cancer patient: rights groups
by Jonathan BROWN
Three American children aged two, four and seven -- one of whom has a rare form of cancer -- have been deported from the United States alongside their undocumented immigrant mothers, campaigners announced Saturday.The deportations from the southern state of Louisiana come as President Donald Trump pursues a hard-line immigration policy, calling for mass expulsions of undocumented migrants.
The administration of President Donald Trump contends one of the women asked for her child to be sent with her.
"The New Orleans ICE Field Office deported at least two families, including two mothers and their minor children," the National Immigration Project said in a Saturday statement, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
It said the deportations were hastily ordered, and carried out in the early hours of Friday.
"One of the mothers is currently pregnant," the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a separate statement, describing the deportations as "illegal and inhumane."
One of the US children removed from the country has "a rare form of metastatic cancer" and was deported without medication or medical consultations, the ACLU said.
It added that ICE agents held the families "incommunicado" and failed to facilitate communication between the women and lawyers.
- 'Horrifying and baffling' -
Gracie Willis of the National Immigration Project said in the statement: "What we saw from ICE over the last several days is horrifying and baffling. Families have been ripped apart unnecessarily."
"We should be gravely concerned that ICE has been given tacit approval to both detain and deport US citizen children."
In the case of one woman and her two-year-old who were deported to Honduras, Federal District Judge Terry Doughty has set a May 16 hearing "in the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the government just deported a US citizen with no meaningful process."
"The government contends that this is all okay because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her. But the court doesn't know that," wrote Doughty in a court order dated Friday, highlighting that it is illegal to deport a US citizen.
The girl has only been identified by the initials VML.
Attorneys for her father filed an emergency request for a temporary restraining order aimed at obtaining the girl's return.
The Trump administration has butted heads with federal judges, rights groups and Democrats who say he has trampled or ignored constitutional rights in rushing to deport migrants, sometimes without the right to a hearing.
In a post on social media Saturday, Trump claimed that undocumented migrants in the United States were "wreaking havoc like we have never seen before."
He dismissed due judicial process around deportations, saying: "It is not possible to have trials for millions and millions of people."
"We know who the Criminals are, and we must get them out of the U.S.A. -- and FAST!"
On Friday, federal agents arrested a US judge in Wisconsin for allegedly shielding an undocumented migrant.
The White House has also defied a Supreme Court ruling that the Trump administration must "facilitate" the return of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.
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© Agence France-Presse