Lawyers for the families of two children with U.S. citizenship, including a 4-year-old who has Stage 4 cancer, have accused the Trump administration of deporting the youths to Honduras on the same day another child with citizenship was allegedly sent to the Central American country, which led to an order from a federal judge requiring the government to explain itself.

President Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, went on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday and insisted that “no U.S. citizen child” had been deported. He claimed that “deported means ordered by an immigration judge” and suggested that the mothers may have chosen to take the children with them, saying: “That’s a parent’s decision. It’s not a government decision, it’s a parent’s decision.”

Reports emerged late Saturday and Sunday from The Washington Post and New York Times saying the 4-year-old and a 7-year-old had also been shipped out Friday with the child that led to the judge’s memorandum in federal court.

As Law&Crime previously reported, a federal judge in Louisiana known for his rulings that tend to align with causes championed by Trump issued a memorandum order Friday setting a hearing to address the apparent deportation of a 2-year-old identified only as V.M.L. According to a petition for a writ of habeas corpus — a request that court determine whether a person’s detention is unlawful — V.M.L. was born in 2023 in Baton Rouge, as indicated on her birth certificate.

Lawyers for the mother of the 2-year-old told the Times that she and the other two kids were all deported to Honduras Friday. The Times reports that the mother of the 2-year-old is pregnant, while the 4-year-old from the other family has a rare form of late-stage cancer. The boy allegedly had no access to his medications or his doctors during the removal process, the lawyers say.

Gracie Willis, a lawyer with the National Immigration Project who is reportedly involved in the case involving the 2-year-old, has condemned the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and local law officials as being both “horrifying and baffling” as the children are all considered “U.S. citizen” children.

Homan, however, says the government sees things differently.

“Having a U.S. citizen child after you enter this country illegally is not a get-out-of-jail free card,” he told “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

“It doesn’t make you immune from our laws,” Homan said. “If that’s the message we sent the entire world, women are gonna keep putting themselves at risk and come to this country. We send a message. You can enter [the] country illegally, which is a crime. That’s okay. You can have due process, great taxpayer expense. Get ordered removed. That’s okay. Don’t leave. But have a U.S. citizen child and you’re immune from removal? That’s not the way it works.”

Speaking to NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that if the children’s families want them to come back to the U.S. that they will be allowed to “if there’s their father or someone here who wants to assume them” in the United States.

“Ultimately, who was deported … was their mothers, who were here illegally,” Rubio said. “The children just went with their mothers. But it wasn’t like — you guys make it sound like ICE agents kicked down the door and grabbed the 2-year-old and threw him on an airplane. That’s misleading.”

A representative “next friend” of the 2-year-old, who says she has known her since birth, has filed a motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to block the child’s removal, accusing ICE of engaging in “attempts to disappear” V.M.L. and lying to the child’s family and representatives in the process.

At the time the TRO motion was filed, the girl’s representatives believed she was still in the U.S.

In its opposition to the TRO request, ICE said the girl’s mother wanted to take V.M.L. with her back to Honduras, and provided as proof a note written by hand in Spanish. Just like Homan and Rubio, the government also signaled skepticism that the child’s “next friend,” as well as V.M.L.’s father, were indeed who they said they were, saying they have not provided identification to ICE in support of releasing the child into their custody.

In Friday’s order, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty — appointed by Trump in 2018 — said that V.M.L. is “ostensibly” a 2-year-old United States citizen.

“Of course, ‘It is illegal and unconstitutional to deport, detain for deportation, or recommend deportation of a U.S. citizen,”” Doughty concluded.

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Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this report. 

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Judge with ‘highly antagonistic demeanor’ must be removed from foster care case, 5th Circuit says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 15, 2024, 8:37 am CDT

A federal appeals court has removed a federal judge from foster care litigation against the state of Texas, citing her “highly antagonistic demeanor” against the defendants during a December 2023 contempt hearing.

Senior U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack of the Southern District of Texas was ordered removed in an Oct. 11 opinion by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New Orleans, report Bloomberg Law, the Texas Tribune and Texas Public Radio.

Jack has become “too personally involved in the proceedings,” the appeals court said.

The 5th Circuit also reversed fines of $100,000 per day that Jack had imposed April 15, 2024, for the state’s alleged failure to implement two remedial orders.

The orders required investigation of allegations of child abuse and neglect in a timely manner for children placed in “permanent managing conservatorship,” which happens when the state cannot find adoptive homes or cannot reunify the children with parents within specified time limits.

The appeals court had stayed the daily fines. Had they been implemented, Texas “would be on the hook for $7.2 million” between the April order and a June compliance hearing, the appeals court said in a footnote.

The 5th Circuit saw the state’s compliance differently than Jack, saying Texas officials have made “significant remedial efforts” in the past several years. The state has already spent $150 million trying to comply with Jack’s remedial decrees and another $60 million on monitors.

As evidence of its compliance, the state said it was hiring more staff members, training them better and implementing policies to hold providers accountable for poor care.

Jack first ruled in 2015 for the plaintiffs, who had challenged the constitutionality of Texas’ foster care system. She awarded “expansive” injunctive relief, the appeals court said.

The 5th Circuit invalidated many aspects of the initial injunction in 2018 and did so in two more opinions after Jack made changes on remand. In its last decision, the 5th Circuit ordered Jack to implement the injunction without further changes, apart from the ones ordered by the 5th Circuit.

Jack has not yet “officially modified” the injunction, the 5th Circuit said. And even though the appeals court “firmly ordered” Jack not to modify the decree, she “imposed extraneous orders” on the state to provide information on COVID-19 vaccine refusals, to expand mental health care and to produce documents not related to the remedial orders, the appeals court said.

“Not only has the district court clearly indicated an intent to continue oversight well into the future,” the 5th Circuit said, “this contempt order seems a harbinger of even more drastic district court micromanagement.”

Jack has “indicated the strong possibility” that she will issue further contempt orders or even place the foster care system in receivership, according to the appeals court.

“As a general rule of law federal judges are not allowed to become permanent de facto superintendents of major state agencies,” the 5th Circuit said. “Nor, under the federalist structure created by the Constitution, is it appropriate for federal court intervention to thwart the state’s self-management, where the state is taking strides to eliminate the abuses that led to the original decree.”

The 5th Circuit said the December hearing happened after Jack “urged and instigated” the plaintiffs for several months to seek contempt. During the hearing, Jack “repeatedly questioned the defendants’ unwillingness to exceed the requirements of the remedial decree,” suggesting that she had “substantial difficulty” moving past previously invalidated remedial orders, the appeals courts said.

“It doesn’t hurt to go over and above” the remedial orders, Jack said during the hearing.

At another point, Jack interrupted a witness to complain that “the state contracts with these people that are not doing their job, and they still keep contracting with them.”

When the witness asked Jack to clarify her question, she replied, “I don’t know if there’s a question. It was more of an irritable rant.”

During testimony by another witness, Jack said, “I don’t know how the state sleeps at night with this. I really don’t.”

Jack’s statements at the contempt hearing and at other times show that she “exhibits a sustained pattern, over the course of months and numerous hearings, of disrespect for the defendants and their counsel but no such attitude toward the plaintiffs’ counsel,” the 5th Circuit said. “The judge’s demeanor exhibits a ‘high degree of antagonism,’ calling into doubt at least ‘the appearance of fairness’ for the state defendants.”

Graham was appointed by former President Bill Clinton. The author of the 5th Circuit panel decision, Judge Edith H. Jones, is an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan.

In a statement published by the Texas Tribune, the state’s heath commission and social services agency said they are pleased that the 5th Circuit recognized their significant efforts.

“We remain committed and are grateful to Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas legislature for their continued support in furthering the well-being of our most vulnerable Texans,” the statement said.

Paul Yetter, a lawyer with Yetter Coleman, one of the attorneys for foster care children, said in a statement the decision was “a sad day for Texas children,” Bloomberg Law reports.

“For over a decade, Judge Jack pushed the state to fix its broken system,” Yetter said. “She deserves a medal for what she’s done. We will keep fighting to ensure these children are safe.”

The case is M.D. v. Abbott.