ICE Deports 3 U.S. Citizen Children Held Incommunicado Prior to the Deportation
Six months ago I would have endorsed wide-scale deportations, but after seeing the consequences—families swept into jails, plain-clothes officers ambushing people on their way to work or school, and communities living in constant fear—it’s clear that indiscriminate removals are neither practical nor just. This approach diverts resources from pursuing violent offenders, erodes faith in the rule of law, and forces the whole country toward a “papers-please” surveillance culture, where everyone must carry ever-stricter IDs. Watching longtime neighbors dragged off for minor infractions, the policy feels capricious, and that perception of unfairness only accelerates the broader corrosion of civil liberties. A sound path must still secure the border, yet focus enforcement on genuine threats and offer law-abiding residents a transparent route to legal status, so safety is preserved without sacrificing the freedoms.
> No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The states are responsible for providing equal protection of the laws to everyone here. The states need to stand up and fight ICE.
<<Insert Rage>>
But for interesting HN discussion... anyone got any juice on why this is happening. Is there orders going down the chain of command from the president to do this sort of thing. Was this behaviour always there but less reported before? Are they more emboldened by the current environment?
How much do you want to bet legal US citizens deported will still need to file for US taxes since you can never outrun the IRS.
I think a couple of things are important to remember in a time like this:
1. This behavior, whether legal or not, is profoundly inhumane.
2. No law, statute, or rule requires us to treat anyone inhumanely. The people behaving this way are doing it because they want to. These are not people you want to have access to any power.
"Deports" is wrong word for removing a citizen. "Expels" would be more appropriate.
Let's do a time warp.
It's 2018. Children are being separated from their parents and kept in cages[1]. It's really important to notice that the pictures in this article are not from reporters, leaks or anything of the sort. They were released by Customs and Border Protection and, no doubt, make things look better than they were.
What has changed since Trump's first term? Yes, there is now a stronger sensitivity to separating children from their parents, among the public at least. One solution is to simply deport child citizens along with non-citizen parents and claim it was by choice.
What solutions are we not seeing in the media though? How many photos are being published about conditions in ICE facilities, Guantanamo bay, etc.? What's going on that we just don't know about this time? If some judge ordered the release of photos of current conditions in ICE facilities, they'd be ignored or even charged with some made-up crime.
I see a lot of people here trying to reason this away, but it's going to be worse than last time and, eventually, the truth will get out. I know it's tough to care about this while Trump is simultaneously tanking the stock market, waging trade wars, threatening multiple countries with invasion or annexation, etc.. That is by design. Even Americans who cannot spare any sympathy for immigrants need to make the time to care about how their government is treating American children.
theyve started arresting judges too, rip.
The purpose of this evil is to spread fear, provoke a response and get publicity, push and prod the system for weakness/loyalty, condition their supporters to accept these atrocities as normal and necessary, and to communicate the blueprint by example, as it gets repeatedly acted out in public. The message is this is how we're operating, so if anything looks weird to you, trust the plan because we're on the same team (wink wink). I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing domestic terrorism and public lawlessness go unpunished if it's directed towards immigrants, journalists, judges, and other 'enemies'.
While the 3 minors are US citizens, their parents are not and the parents can be deported because they are in the country illegally.
That means you have the following options:
a) deport nobody, i.e. you don't apply the law
b) deport just the parents. What do you do with the minor children? Separating them from their parents (different countries) would be cruel.
c) deport the entire family, including the US minors. Since they have US citizenship, they can always return to the US.
So this is what America voted for.
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/3081/
This ended up being fake news:
Justice Department attorneys argued that it was in the child's best interest to remain in her mother's legal custody and suggested the child could return, writing, "V.M.L. is not prohibited from entering the United States."
Trump administration officials told the court that the mother had informed ICE agents that she wanted to bring V.M.L. with her to Honduras, providing a handwritten note in Spanish that they said confirmed her wishes.
Feels like this conversation is full of people getting hung up on arguing the technicalities and exact phrasing of this situation. Is that really important to the broader conversation?
The value of citizenship is being eroded each year, with governments increasingly keen to strip people of citizenship [0].
First they came for the terrorists, then they came for the dual citizenship lesser criminals.
We're getting a glimpse of who's next. The Dutch government wanted to strip citizenship from people convicted of a crime with an "antisemitic element"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/26/how-idea-of-st...
I cannot for the life of me understand why Americans have such a problem with other people coming here to seek a better life. Half this country has been tricked into seeing hardworking immigrants as a threat to their safety and livelihood — but by all metrics, immigrants are a net positive to society.
I also take issue with the idea that this extreme exclusionary mindset is somehow new to America. A lot of people frame what’s happening as if it’s the first time this country has gone through this. There is a long and storied tradition of otherizing, deporting, and imprisoning. Going back to our very foundation — America was born out of a process of expelling Native people from their lands. Then there’s the Great Migration period and the intense reaction to it, the Palmer raids, FDR’s internment camps, Eisenhower’s deportations, McCarthy era “anti-communism”, mass incarceration as a reaction to the Civil Rights Act, Islamophobia, and now this aggressively right wing anti-immigration sentiment.
The people of America, unfortunately, are prone to drastically evil actions when they are tricked by opportunistic political actors into believing their way of life is somehow under attack. This cycle has been going on for a long time.
Of course the administration was lying when it said they would only target “criminals”.
Of course it’s impossible to know who “really” is a critical mastermind. (Comic book lives) /s
Everyone should pay attention and amplify these stories of targeted non-criminal families, because the “radical left” is next. Joking/not-Joking
Here’s another family in Washington state,
“A high schooler stays back as his family, separated by deportation, returns to Guatemala”
APRIL 26, 2025 WEEKEND EDITION SATURDAY
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/26/nx-s1-5330896/a-high-schooler...
Why the deliberate atrocities?
I read an article that starts with this proposition [1]
> The real question, however, is not how America lost its way. We know the mechanics of it. It lost its way in large measure because Donald Trump, a Pied Piper of malice, led it astray, though one can’t lay all of that or even most of it on Trump. The American people, nearly half of those who voted, in their infinite wisdom empowered Trump to do so. They were looking for a Trump, yearning for a Trump, to do so.
> They wanted a Trump to destroy the nation. They hoped he would destroy the nation both by sowing chaos and discord and by supervising a demolition of our institutions and values. So the real question we should be asking is why so many of our fellow Americans desired this, and what deep proclivities Trump drew upon to prompt the nation, at least a good part of it, to self-immolate. What does Trump give them?
Having read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as a young person, this is reminiscent of a fascist playbook.
Except that it seems that social media are in effect creating a culture of resentment, projection of weakness and failure onto others and driving it for profit with unfiltered echo chambers.
The cause and effect seems to be playing to a vengeful base in order to keep legislators in line until their branch and the judicial branch are rendered impotent.
Exploring the parallels with Nazi Germany, the amassing of data was paramount.
> DOGE is building a master database for immigration enforcement, sources say [2]
Further,
> TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TEXTED COLLEGE PROFESSORS’ PERSONAL PHONES TO ASK IF THEY’RE JEWISH [3]
> The school later told staff it had provided the Trump administration with personal contact information for faculty members.
> The messages, sent to most Barnard professors’ personal cellphones, asked them to complete a voluntary survey about their employment.
> “Please select all that apply,” said the second question in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC, survey.
> The choices followed: (including) “I am Jewish”; “I am Israeli”; “I have shared Jewish/Israeli ancestry”; “I practice Judaism”; and “Other.”
Data?
IBM provided Germany with tabulating equipment to manage "undesirables" [4] [5]
The notion of cultural supremacy resonates with some in Silicon Valley, land of big and targeted data.
'Reboot' Revealed: Elon Musk's CEO-Dictator Playbook [6]
Silicon Valley Whistleblowers Warn Elon Musk 'Hijacking' Republicans to Control Entire US Government [7]
PDF of their letter. [8] 630K
[1] https://whowhatwhy.org/culture/the-agonizing-work-of-art-tha...
[2] https://www.yahoo.com/news/doge-building-master-database-imm...
[3] https://theintercept.com/2025/04/23/trump-eeoc-barnard-colum...
[4] https://allthatsinteresting.com/ibm-nazis-ww2/3
[5] https://allthatsinteresting.com/ibm-nazis-ww2
[6] https://www.thenerdreich.com/reboot-elon-musk-ceo-dictator-d...
[7] https://bylinetimes.com/2025/02/07/silicon-valley-whistleblo...
[8] https://america2.news/content/files/2025/02/Musk-NRx-Memo-Fe...
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And one child deported without cancer meds. At that point you are just trying to kill people
Remember Night of Broken Glass from 1938, eventually it will be too late if there isn't a major stand-up movement.
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From what research I've seen, the phrasing here should be that non-citizens were deported and chose to bring their US citizen children with them. The children themselves were not deported.
This in no way excuses any of the other issues like not allowing contact with legal advocates / attorneys.