The Trump administration insists the two mothers recently deported along with their young children—despite the fact that those children are US citizens, and one of them has cancer—chose to take their children with them. A lawyer representing one of the families says that's not so. "Here we had moms held completely in isolation, being told what was happening to their children. They didn't have an opportunity to talk this through, to weigh the pros and cons of taking or leaving their children in the US," says Gracie Willis, an attorney with the National Immigration Project. Willis is representing one family and is coordinating with the legal team representing the other, the Guardian reports.
She says neither mother was given an opportunity to contact legal representation, nor were they allowed an opportunity to leave their children with another parent or caregiver. One mom was deported along with her 4- and 7-year-olds with no access to medication or care for her youngest child, who has late-stage cancer, within 24 hours of being arrested at a routine ICE check-in, the AP reports. The other mom, who is pregnant, was deported along with her 11- and 2-year-old daughters, despite the fact that the 2-year-old's father was desperately trying to get to her so she could remain in the US with him. (The 11-year-old was born in Honduras.)
Lawyers for the 2-year-old's father said in a court filing that ICE indicated it was holding his daughter in an attempt to get her dad to turn himself in; the lawyers haven't revealed his immigration status, but they said he has legally transferred custody of his daughters to his sister-in-law, who is a US citizen. "ICE didn't give them another alternative," Willis says of the two deported mothers. "They didn't [give] them a choice, that these mothers only had the option to take their children with them despite loving caregivers being available in the United States to keep them here." (More mass deportations stories.)
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