NEW ORLEANS — The story hit like a gut punch: three American kids, born and raised on U.S. soil, yanked from their Louisiana homes and shipped off to Honduras. Their mothers, undocumented immigrants, were deported on April 18, and the children—ages 6, 9, and 12—went with them. Now, lawyers for the families are crying foul, saying the moms were bullied into dragging their U.S.-citizen kids along, with no real choice in the matter.
It started when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rounded up the two mothers in a sweep targeting undocumented residents in Jefferson Parish. The women, whose names are being withheld to protect their families, had lived in Louisiana for over a decade. Their kids were enrolled in local schools, spoke English fluently, and had never set foot in Honduras. Yet, on April 18, all five—moms and kids—were on a plane to Tegucigalpa.
According to legal filings submitted to a federal court in New Orleans on April 22, the mothers were detained separately and held without access to phones or lawyers for nearly 48 hours before their deportation. During that time, ICE officials allegedly told them their children would be deported alongside them, no questions asked. One mother, through her attorney, said she begged to leave her kids with their legal guardians—a grandmother and an aunt, both U.S. residents—but was told it wasn’t an option. The other mother claimed she was given a form to sign, written in English, which she barely understood, that supposedly authorized her kids’ removal. She signed it, she later said, because she was warned she’d lose custody otherwise.
The lawyers, part of a coalition including the National Immigration Project, argue this was coercion, plain and simple. They point to federal law, which bars the deportation of U.S. citizens without due process. The kids, they say, were effectively stripped of their constitutional rights. On April 25, U.S. District Judge Jay Doughty scheduled a hearing for May 16, saying he’s got a “bad feeling” the government might have “booted out American citizens without a shred of proper procedure.” He didn’t mince words: deporting U.S. citizens is flat-out illegal.
The case has sparked a firestorm. On April 20, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking at a press conference in Washington, D.C., claimed the mothers “chose” to take their kids with them. He called it a “family decision” and said ICE followed protocol. But the families’ legal team fired back, saying Rubio’s statement doesn’t square with the mothers’ accounts. They’ve got affidavits from both women, signed post-deportation, detailing how ICE officials shut down their pleas for alternatives. One lawyer described it as “a pressure cooker—sign here, or else.”
Adding fuel to the controversy, court documents reveal that both families had lawful custodians ready to step in. The grandmother of two of the kids, a 58-year-old U.S. citizen living in Metairie, said she was never contacted by ICE. The aunt of the third child, a 34-year-old nurse in Kenner, was similarly left in the dark. Both have since joined the lawsuit, demanding the kids’ immediate return.
The deportation flight itself, operated by a private contractor under ICE’s Air Operations Unit, left Louisiana on April 18 and landed in Honduras the same day. The children, who had no passports or travel documents, were processed as “accompanying minors” under their mothers’ deportation orders, according to an ICE report filed with the court. The agency has declined to comment on the case, citing ongoing litigation.
As the May 16 hearing looms, the kids remain in Honduras, staying with relatives in a rural village outside San Pedro Sula. Their lawyers say the children are struggling—no school, no familiar faces, and a language they barely speak. The mothers, meanwhile, are navigating a country they haven’t called home in years, with no clear path to bring their kids back to the U.S.
The lawsuit seeks an emergency injunction to return the children to Louisiana and a ruling declaring their deportation unconstitutional. It also demands ICE release all records related to the case, including internal communications about the decision to remove the kids. For now, the families wait, caught in a legal tug-of-war that’s left three American children stranded far from home.