Immigration officials deported three children this weekend. They are all United States citizens. The sudden removal of the children, one is currently receiving treatment for stage 4 cancer, is alarming legal experts. Trump administration officials are attempting to rewrite the narrative. Here’s what we know so far about the children. Legal representatives are sounding the alarm about the lack of due process in the deportations.

The Trump administration deported three children despite being U.S. citizens

Immigration officials deported three U.S. citizens, who are children, to Honduras. It is the latest in a terrifying escalation of sweeping deportations. Two families and their attorneys are searching for answers with little information. According to a news release from the American Civil Liberties Union, the New Orleans Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office deported two mothers and their young children. The women were reporting to routine meetings as part of the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP).

CNN reported that immigration officials detained the 2-year-old, V.M.L., with her mother during the meeting. The other family, a woman with her two children who are 4 and 7 years old, was also arrested during a similar meeting. Attorneys for the families are sounding the alarm after they were denied access to the families.

“ICE’s actions show a blatant violation of due process and basic human rights,” Teresa Reyes-Flores, Southeast Dignity not Detention Coalition (SEDND), says in the ACLU statement. “The families were disappeared, cut off from their lawyers and loved ones, and rushed to be deported, stripping their parents of the chance to protect their U.S. citizen children.”

Immigration officials are working overtime to reframe the deportations

According to court documents, the father of 2-year-old V.M.L. petitioned the court. The father cited his daughter’s citizenship to stop her deportation. Court documents show that immigration officials threatened the father with detention if he tried to pick up his child. The father said there was someone ready and willing to care for the child. An attorney representing the 2-year-old filed a petition to prevent the deportation of V.M.L.

The patient’s physician was not consulted, and they were deported without access to medications. ICE became aware of the child’s emergency medical needs but did not take steps to safeguard the child’s health.

According to Gracie Willis, a lawyer and the raids response coordinator at the National Immigration Project, neither woman requested the children to be deported with them. Sec. Rubio alleges that the mother of V.M.L. wrote a note by hand asking for the child to stay with her.

“If someone’s in this country unlawfully, illegally, that person gets deported. If that person is with a 2-year-old child, or has a 2-year-old child and says, ‘I want to take my child … with me,’ well then … you have two choices,” Rubio claimed on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty of the Western District of Louisiana scheduled a hearing for May 19. The upcoming hearing will demand answers and information about the deportation of U.S. citizen children. It is illegal to deport a U.S. citizen, which is why Secretary of State Marco Rubio is working overtime to reframe the deportations.

The U.S. government is rushing deportations and seemingly denying people due process. Due process is a cornerstone of the U.S. Constitution and a right offered to everyone. Without due process, the federal government does not need to prove anything to arrest, detain, or deport people. Due process allows everyone to go before a judge and have a fair day in court for their case to be heard. Without this central tenet of American democracy, every person is subject to unlawful arrests.

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