Trump administration border czar Tom Homan argued Sunday that “due process” was applied when a two-year-old child who is a U.S. citizen was removed to Honduras along with her mother, who was deported.
Louisiana Federal District Court Judge Terry Doughty wrote in an order Friday that there was a “strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process,” after the 2-year-old was sent to Honduras with her mother and 11-year-old sister.
But Homan said “the judge was due process,” adding on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that the two-year-old’s mother “had due process at great taxpayer expense and was ordered by an immigration judge after those hearings, so she had due process.”
Doughty, who was appointed by President Trump during his first term, sought to arrange a phone call with the mother of the two-year-old on Friday, but Justice Department lawyers informed him that a call with the child’s mother would not be possible, according to court documents. Meanwhile, the two-year-old’s father tried to petition the court to have the child’s legal custody temporarily transferred to a relative who is a U.S. citizen.
When asked by Brennan about the timeframe and process allowed, Homan reiterated that “there was due process.”
“The two-year-old went with the mom. The mom signed the paper, saying ‘I want my two-year-old to go with me,'” Homan said. “That’s a parent’s decision, it’s not a government decision.”
The two-year-old is among three children who are American citizens who were deported Friday with their mothers from the U.S. to Honduras, according to court documents reviewed by CBS News. Homan disputed the characterization, saying, “we don’t deport U.S. citizens” and added that in these cases, “the mother chose to take the children with her.”
“This is parenting 101,” Homan said. “You can decide to take that child with you, or you can decide to leave a child here with a relative or another spouse.”
Among the children deported was a four-year-old with Stage 4 cancer, advocates said. The “border czar” said he wasn’t aware of that specific case. Homan argued that when someone enters the country illegally and chooses to have a child, automatically granting the child American citizenship, “that’s on you, that’s not on this administration.”
“Having a U.S. citizen child after you enter this country legally is not a get out jail free card,” Homan said. He added that it doesn’t make people “immune from our laws.”
The development comes as the Trump administration has conducted rapid deportations as it pursues an aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration. The moves have at times led to several court battles, including in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who lived in Maryland who the Justice Department has admitted was mistakenly among a group of men deported to a prison in El Salvador last month.
More than 230 men, mostly Venezuelans, were deported on March 15 to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, although U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., had ordered that the planes be turned around. The Trump administration says it can remove immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which was previously used during wartime. The case worked its way up to the Supreme Court, which at first ruled the deportations could continue as long as they were given due process.
The Supreme Court last week temporarily blocked any new deportations from a detention center in Texas under the Alien Enemies Act.
