"It is illegal and unconstitutional to deport, detain for deportation, or recommend deportation of a U.S. citizen," U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointee, reminded the Trump administration in a Friday ruling. The Department of Homeland Security contended in a court hearing that the removal of American child is proper even though her father had sought an emergency petition on Thursday to stop the girl from being sent abroad.
"The parents made the decision to take the child with them to Honduras. It is common that parents want to be removed with their children," Tricia McLaughlin, DHS' assistant secretary for public affairs, said in a statement to NPR.
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According to court documents, the 2-year-old New Orleans native was brought by her mother, Jenny Carolina Lopez Villela, to a routine immigration appointment in New Orleans on Tuesday when they were arrested along with her older sister. The suit alleges that ICE agents repeatedly refused to give the child's father her location and denied him the opportunity to speak for more than a minute to her mother.
"The families were completely isolated during critical moments when decisions were being made about the welfare of their minor children," the ACLU argued in a statement.
"The Government contends that this is all okay because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her," Doughty wrote. "But the Court doesn't know that." The judge wrote that a lawyer for the Justice Department later told him that Lopez Villela “had just been released in Honduras."
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