Deportations ensnare migrant families, U.S. citizens

Trump's deportation crackdown is sweeping up more than just immigrants as ICE targets citizens, judges and nursing mothers

Heidy Sanchez was forced to leave her baby behind when she was deported to Cuba
"Judges, lawyers, and ordinary citizens are now potential targets if they dare to interfere" with ICE
(Image credit: Mario Fuentes / Reuters)

What happened

The Trump administration ramped up its deportation campaign this week, defending recent expulsions of American children along with their immigrant parents and arresting a Milwaukee judge accused of obstructing a migrant's arrest. In two separate incidents in Louisiana, women checking in for routine immigration appointments with ICE were arrested and deported to Honduras along with their American-citizen children. One of the three children deported, a 4-year-old boy, had been undergoing cancer treatment. Lawyers for both families said the mothers weren't given the option to leave their children with relatives in the U.S. There is "a strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process," said Louisiana Federal District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty, a Trump appointee handling one of the cases. Other deportations separated children from their parents. Tampa resident Heidy Sanchez said she was forced to leave her unweaned baby behind when she was deported to Cuba, while a 2-year-old girl in Texas was sent to foster care after her mother was deported to Venezuela and her father to El Salvador's CECOT prison.

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