We just deported a US citizen

with, as the judge says, "no meaningful process"

Here’s what happened¹:

On April 22, 2025, this US citizen toddler called VML was taken by her mother to a scheduled check-in for ISAP (Intensive Supervision Appearance Program). ISAP is a program that lets people check-in regularly with ICE instead of being incarcerated.

VML’s mom had an appointment, so she brought her two kids with her… VML and VML’s big sister.

At the check-in, ICE officers took VML and her mom and sister into custody.

About an hour later, VML’s dad got a phone call with an address, and was told that was where his family had been taken. He drove there and discovered it was the ICE field office in New Orleans. ICE gave him a paper saying that VML’s mother was in their custody. He immediately called a lawyer

That afternoon, their lawyer called ICE. He was told that VML and her daughters were “in a hotel” somewhere but wasn’t given any more information. The lawyer wasn’t given a way to get ahold of them.

That evening at about 7:30pm, ICE called VML’s father and said that he’d be able to talk to his partner, but that they wouldn’t have long because his family was about to be deported. He could hear all three of them crying. He quickly reminded his partner that VML was a US citizen and couldn’t be deported. An ICE officer overheard and said that she wouldn’t be, but when VML’s father tried to give his partner their attorney’s number, the ICE officer grabbed the phone and hung it up. They had been on the phone for about a minute total.

That same day, VML’s father also granted custody of the children to his US citizen sister-in-law (slightly more complicated than this, you can see it in the court docs below), and the attorney also wrote ICE and laid out some of the illegal things done in the arrest AND included VML’s birth certificate, proving she was born in Louisiana.

The next morning the attorney spoke to an ICE agent who refused to turn VML over to her (now legal) custodian. She (the agent) said that if he wanted his daughter back, he should come get her. And if he wasn’t a legal US citizen, they would take him into custody and deport them all together. Which was a huge screw up on her part, because she admitted right there that she was illegally detaining VML, a US citizen, in order to try to get at Dad.

There’s more to the story, but we’ll skip a few twists and turns to get to court, where U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty took a look at the case. Judge Doughty is a man who has made it clear that he more-or-less backs the current administration in a variety of decisions over the years (which is his prerogative as a judge).

So government lawyers were probably a little surprised when the judge revealed that he was a little miffed. He did not like AT ALL that the US government was deporting this US citizen without some careful process attached. The government argued that VML’s mother had decided to take the girl with her, and thus “everything is okay.” They said she had told them this and also showed the judge a note in Spanish they claimed was from her.

The judge said, that’s all well and good, but I’d like to talk to her myself. So he asked for a phone call. But by that point, as the judge himself would say, VML and her mother and sister were all on an airplane “over the Gulf of America.”

ICE called the judge later today (April 25) and told him that he couldn’t speak to VML’s mother because she had been released in Honduras somewhere.

The judge then decided to set a hearing for mid-May and he does not sound pleased. He said he wanted the hearing, “In the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.”

He pointed out in the same decision that “Of course” it is also “illegal and unconstitutional to deport, detain for deportation, or recommend deportation of a U.S. citizen.”

And again, this is a judge who is friendly to the administration, a guy who people in the administration specifically try to get on their cases because of his friendliness to their line of argument. And he is clearly furious about the whole thing.

He is, of course, right to be.

The US government just:

* Illegally detained a US citizen
* Refused to turn her over to a legal guardian
* Said they had detained her specifically to try to get her father to come get arrested by ICE and wouldn’t be releasing her unless he did
* Wouldn’t allow her parents to have a meaningful conversation about what to do with their daughter
* Limited access to her lawyer
* And then deported this US citizen

So that’s illegal detention and illegal and unconstitutional deportation.

It’s also so incredibly sloppy.

I know there are people who are going to want to talk all about the legal status of VML’s parents, who are going to want to talk about birthright citizenship and BLAH BLAH BLAH but guess what: that kid is a legal citizen of the United States. If you care about following the law, if your big argument is “do it legally” then please please I beg of you, hold our government to the same standard.

People have been saying they will be upset when a certain line gets crossed:

“Oh, if LEGAL immigrants were getting deported, I’d be mad.” Well, they are.

“If someone with a GREEN CARD was arrested I’d be upset.” Well, they have. This week the government even admitted that they didn’t have a warrant and they lied about it when they arrested legal immigrant and Green Card holder Mahmoud Khalil.

“If someone was illegally deported or jailed, that would be a line we shouldn’t cross.” It’s been done, and even admitted by the government.

“At least we’re not deporting US citizens!” Well, guess what. Today we did. A two year old kid. We didn’t even let her parents have five minutes to talk about what to do, or let her mother talk to her lawyer.

I’m not sure what line is left to draw. So if you’re erasing the line over and over to make a new one, you’re running out of chalkboard.

Meanwhile, there’s a US citizen who has been illegally deported to Honduras after being illegally detained and illegally kept from legal counsel. A two year old. I guess I’ll just keep saying that: this US citizen is two years old.

If you feel like it, you can:

(Thanks!)

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SOURCES:

The basic story is here.

The petition filed on VML’s behalf, which includes a lot of the details of this story.

The Judge’s not-very-happy order memorandum order.

We’re deporting legal citizens

Illegally deported.

Illegally arrested.

They lied about having a warrant when they arrested Mahmoud Khalil.

P.S. This would be a good place to talk about the bit of good news that we got today: The US government is returning most international student’s SEVIS records to being valid. They’ve been getting slapped down by courts all over the place (because what they did was illegal), so they’re putting things back in place and going to try again. More carefully. Hopefully legally. Which is how things should have been done in the first place. But honestly I am so tired, and that should be its own post, and I don’t want to pull together all the sources tonight. But that is good news and should be celebrated!

1. NOTE: Let me just get this out of the way: I’m going to be careful what I say and share here, because we are talking about a toddler. So there’s some information that’s publicly available (her mom’s name, her sister’s name, things like that) which I’m not going to share in this post. The court is calling the little girl “V.M.L.” and that will work for us here, too. As always I’ve included links at the end, so you can look up the facts for yourself.