Immigration agents gave a mother less than two minutes to decide the fate of her children – one of whom is a 2-year-old U.S. citizen – before she was deported to Honduras, according to the child's attorney.
Grace Willis, who represents the toddler, told MSNBC on Monday that the child's mother was arrested last week along with her two children during a routine check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and she said federal agents prevented any contact with the woman for days until she was eventually allowed to speak to her partner by phone – but for only two minutes, reported The Daily Beast.
“They were asserting the child’s U.S. citizenship on speaker phone with the ICE officer, who was in the room with the mother,” Willis said. “As soon as the father started providing the phone number for an attorney, the ICE officer hung up the phone. That was the last time they spoke to each other until the mother landed in Honduras.”
The mother had been maintaining regular contact with ICE for years due to an outstanding deportation order, the attorney said, but she was detained April 22 with the toddler and an older child, and all three were then taken to Honduras, and Willis says agents forced the woman to write a letter stating that she wanted her U.S.-born child to come with her.
Also read: 'This is our shot': Dems believe MTG's new job gives 'golden opportunity' to destroy GOP
"ICE has been misrepresenting what's in this letter, the letter, as was just stated, says, 'My child will come with me, I will bring my child,'" Willis said. "It's not a statement of desire, it's not a statement of what the mother hoped or wanted to happen, and, in fact, what we now know is the mother was told, 'Your child will be deported with you,' and was told to write this letter that said, 'My child will come with me.'"
"She was never provided an opportunity to make a different choice," Willis added. "This was the choice that was given to her, the only option available to her, and she never had an opportunity to speak with a lawyer or to speak with the child's father to make any other different decision."
U.S. District judge Terry Doughty has scheduled a May 16 hearing to dispel the court's "strong suspicion" that the Trump administration deported a U.S. citizen without due process.
“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.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
- YouTubeyoutu.be
