Key Takeaways
• ICE deported two families, including three U.S. citizen children, from New Orleans on April 26, 2025.
• One deported child had metastatic cancer and lacked access to needed medicine before removal, raising serious health concerns.
• A federal judge questioned ICE’s actions, citing possible violations of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments and lack of due process.
In the early morning hours of April 26, 2025, the New Orleans office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported two families. Included in those deportations were three U.S. citizen children, ages two, four, and seven. These deportations have caused strong concerns across the United States 🇺🇸 about both the treatment of families and if their rights were respected. Groups that work on immigrant rights, legal experts, and even a federal judge are now asking serious questions. Many people want answers about what happened to these U.S. citizen children and if ICE followed their own rules, the law, or basic ideas of fairness.
What Happened: A Closer Look
ICE officers detained the first family on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. The second family was detained two days later, on Thursday, April 24. In both situations, ICE kept these families incommunicado. This means they were not allowed to call lawyers, family, or friends for help or advice before being removed from the country. There was only one short phone call for one of the mothers. Even that call lasted less than a minute. It ended quickly when her spouse tried to give her the phone number of an attorney. ICE stopped the call at that point.
This kind of action has led many people to wonder if these families were denied even a basic chance to ask for help. As reported by VisaVerge.com, both families had possible options to stay in the United States 🇺🇸 legally, but they were kept from talking to lawyers in time. Because they couldn’t get advice or make their case before a judge, their possible paths to relief were stopped before they even started.
In one example, a family tried to seek help from the court. They filed a “habeas corpus” petition. This is a request to a court when someone believes the government is holding them illegally. They also filed for a “temporary restraining order” to stop the deportation. However, ICE moved quickly, deporting the family in the early morning, before any court could hear their plea.
ICE informed the family’s lawyers of these plans after business hours and said the deportation would take place at 6 a.m. the next morning. This meant the court system was not open to respond. The lawyers were unable to act in time, so ICE deported the family before any judge could decide if the removal was lawful.
Health and Safety Issues: How ICE Acted
Among the three U.S. citizen children deported was a young child who suffers from a rare kind of metastatic cancer. This is an illness where cancer spreads from one part of the body to others. Before the deportation, ICE was told about the child’s urgent medical needs. The child did not have his needed medicine when he was sent out of the country, nor did he have a chance to see his doctor beforehand. This could have serious effects on the child’s health. Both parents and advocates worry this put the child’s life at great risk.
Another mother who was deported is pregnant. ICE did not make arrangements for her to get continuous care for her pregnancy in the new country. She was sent out of the United States 🇺🇸 without enough steps taken to keep her healthy or to protect her unborn baby. This, too, has raised strong questions about ICE’s handling of the families’ safety and rights.
These actions seem to go against ICE’s own official policies. ICE has rules stating that, when they remove families with minor children, they must help connect those children to someone who can take care of them. This is supposed to happen before the family is sent away. It is not just a good idea—it is part of their official job.
For those interested in what ICE’s official policies require, the agency publishes them on its official ICE website. This is an important resource for anyone wanting to know what ICE agents are legally supposed to do when detaining families with children, especially children who are U.S. citizens.
Legal Requirements and ICE’s Actions
When any government group—including ICE—detains people for removal from the United States 🇺🇸, it must follow the law. These laws say that everyone in the country, including U.S. citizens and those awaiting hearings, must be offered a chance to contact an attorney before being deported. This is part of the idea of “due process.” Due process is the rule that the government cannot take away a person’s freedom, property, or rights without a fair process.
Denying access to lawyers, keeping people incommunicado, and moving forward with deportations when a court might soon review the case all raise doubts about whether ICE followed due process with these families. One concern is that ICE ignored warnings from medical staff and advocates about the health of the children and the pregnant mother.
In fact, the government’s own lawyers told the family’s attorney that they would arrange for a legal phone call within 24 to 48 hours. Instead, ICE sped up the deportation process, surprised the lawyers, and removed the families before any proper review could happen. This has led to widespread criticism, as families facing deportation are often left with no way to protect their rights or access the help they need.
The Role of the Courts: A Judge’s Concern
The seriousness of these actions brought the attention of the federal courts. In one of these cases, a federal judge, Terry Doughty, took a strong interest. The judge was especially concerned about the removal of a two-year-old U.S. citizen who was sent to Honduras 🇭🇳. The judge said there was “no meaningful process” before the child was deported. This means the judge did not believe the family or their lawyers had a real chance to argue their case before ICE sent them away. U.S. Judge Terry Doughty then set a hearing for May 16, where the matter would be discussed further.
When the government claimed that the removal was acceptable because the mother wanted her child to be deported with her, the judge pushed back. The court said there was no evidence or “confirmation” from the mother to support what the government said. This gap in the record made the court question the government’s process even more.
The judge’s official order said ICE’s actions might have broken the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The Fourth Amendment protects people from being searched and seized without good reason, or what is called “probable cause.” The Fifth Amendment offers due process protections to anyone in the United States 🇺🇸, citizen or not. The court said ICE agents did not have “probable cause” to believe the two-year-old child, a U.S. citizen, should or could be removed from the country.
The Bitter Choice for Mixed-Status Families
These latest cases are part of a much larger story across the United States 🇺🇸. Over the last ten years, many mixed-status families—where some members are U.S. citizens and others are not—have struggled with ICE’s actions. From 2013 to 2018, for example, ICE deported over 231,000 people who said they had at least one U.S. citizen child. These numbers come from official data and were reported by the American Immigration Council.
When parents who are not citizens are removed, their children—who may be U.S. citizens—must face a hard choice. They can stay in the United States 🇺🇸 with relatives or guardians, or go with their parents to a country they may not know. Neither option is easy for parents or children. Many parents do not want to leave their children behind, but taking them out of their home country can mean losing access to services, schooling, and medical care they need.
This choice can be even more painful in cases like those in New Orleans, where U.S. citizen children and those with medical needs were removed without proper planning. It is not only a legal issue—it has serious human consequences. These children may face language barriers, lack of schooling, and little or no health care in a new country.
Impact on U.S. Citizen Children
The main concern for many people is the effect on U.S. citizen children. Studies have found that children who are separated from their parents because of immigration enforcement can experience what doctors call “toxic stress.” This is stress so strong and lasting that it damages children’s brains and bodies. The results include depression, anxiety, ongoing sadness, and even physical health problems.
Children who move with their parents to a new country may lose ties to their friends and extended family, struggle in new schools, and have trouble adapting. A child who loses access to needed medical care, as in the case of the cancer patient deported by ICE, may face even greater hardship.
When pregnant mothers are removed with no plans for continuity of prenatal care, the risk to both mother and baby increases. These are real costs that extend far beyond the moment of deportation.
ICE, Policy, and Public Debate
These recent deportations also raise deep questions about ICE’s internal policies—and if officers on the ground follow them. ICE has procedures that should protect children’s welfare and ensure that health needs are met. However, in these cases, the reported failure to connect children to caretakers and to ensure medical or prenatal care suggests those policies were not followed well or at all.
The news of holding families incommunicado and swift removals before courts could rule has led to public outcry. Advocates, lawyers, and community members are asking how this can happen to U.S. citizen children and why there was so little oversight. Many are calling for Congress or the administration to investigate and make changes to prevent such cases in the future.
Some people argue that ICE must do its job in enforcing immigration laws. Others believe that removing children who were born in the United States 🇺🇸, and denying families the right to see a lawyer, fails both the law and basic ideas of justice.
The Ongoing Challenge
These events in New Orleans are not isolated. For years, groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have documented problems with ICE’s handling of family immigration cases. The ACLU press release provides more details about this incident, including how the families were denied basic legal help and care.
No one knows yet how the courts will rule in these current cases or if policy changes will follow. What is clear is that many U.S. citizen children and families with mixed status are at risk of more hardship unless ICE’s practices are closely watched and improved. Families across the United States 🇺🇸 want to know how similar situations can be prevented in the future.
Final Thoughts and Next Steps
This story shows possible deep failures in the system meant to protect families and especially U.S. citizen children. The cases from New Orleans include ICE, U.S. citizen children, and the real dangers of hasty deportations. At the center are children—one with cancer, another with a pregnant mother—who were removed from the United States 🇺🇸 without the chance to be heard or cared for properly.
Moving forward, the public, lawmakers, and the courts face hard questions. Will ICE change its policies or better enforce its own rules to protect children’s rights? Will courts continue to review—and maybe stop—deportations that seem unjust or illegal? Most importantly, will U.S. citizen children and their families get fair treatment, proper care, and access to lawyers in the future?
For anyone affected by deportation or seeking more information, resources from organizations like the American Immigration Council can provide helpful guidance. The continuing coverage and investigation by groups like VisaVerge.com also help shine light on this important topic and keep the public informed.
As these cases go before the courts and more information comes out, the experience of these three U.S. citizen children—deported suddenly, with health needs unmet, and their voices unheard—will continue to shape the debate about ICE, U.S. citizen children, and deportations in the United States 🇺🇸 for months and years to come.
Learn Today
Incommunicado → A condition where individuals are detained without access to communicate with lawyers, family, or others for help or advice.
Habeas Corpus → A legal petition challenging unlawful detention, requesting a court to determine if a person’s imprisonment is legal.
Due Process → A constitutional guarantee ensuring fair procedures before the government deprives a person of liberty, property, or rights.
Mixed-Status Families → Families where some members are U.S. citizens while others are not, often affected by immigration enforcement.
Temporary Restraining Order → A court order issued to prevent a specific action—like deportation—temporarily, until a full hearing occurs.
This Article in a Nutshell
On April 26, 2025, ICE deported two families from New Orleans, including three U.S. citizen children. The process ignored urgent medical needs and legal protections, prompting widespread criticism and judicial concern. The incident highlights repeated due process violations and demands for greater transparency and protection for citizen children facing deportation.
— By VisaVerge.com
Read more:
• Pre-Existing Conditions: What Immigrants Need to Know in New Zealand
• Portuguese D7 Visa offers Americans new path for passive income living
• Florida stops immigration arrests after judge halts new immigration law
• Congressional lawmakers question ICE detainee transfers to new areas
• Thai Airways adds new Airbus A321neo jets through fresh lease deals
