2-year-old U.S. citizen apparently deported 'with no meaningful process,' judge says

A federal judge in Louisiana on Friday said that a 2-year-old U.S. citizen appears to have been deported with her mother to Honduras with no meaningful due process.

A federal judge in Louisiana on Friday said that a 2-year-old U.S. citizen appears to have been deported with her mother to Honduras with no meaningful due process.

In an order scheduling a hearing for next month, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty wrote that the child was sent to Honduras on Friday with her mother, who had been ordered to be removed.

“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 Louisiana court called a government lawyer at 12:19 p.m. local time to speak with the child’s mother, while the plane was in the air, and was called back at 1:06 p.m. and told that mother and child were already in Honduras, Doughty wrote.

Doughty wrote that the May 16 hearing was “In the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.”