Two Trump administration officials fought back on Sunday accusations that young children with US citizenship were deported to their parents’ countries of origin.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and border emperor Tom Homan argued that exiled parents of children had decided to bring their children instead of chasing after young American citizens.
“Children are not exiled,” Homan said in CBS News, “Facing the People.”
“The mother chose to take the children,” he said of the recent incident. “[If] You are here illegally and you choose to have a US citizen child above you, as to what to do if you are deported.
“It’s not this administration,” he said.
Rubio also complained about media coverage of children being sent back to their exiled parents’ country of origin.
“You guys do that [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] The agent kicked the door, grabbed the two-year-old and threw it on the plane. That’s misleading. That’s not true,” he said on NBC News “Meet the Press.”
Last week, a Trump-appointed federal judge from Louisiana raised concerns that his father sent his 2-year-old mother back to Honduras with his deported mother “without a meaningful process.”
In response to an emergency petition from the father of the child, Judge Terry Dauty gripped, “The court doesn’t know about that.” Doughty also emphasized that American citizens were “illegal and unconstitutional.”
“I don’t agree with the judge. It was a legitimate process,” Homan said. “The woman had legitimate procedures due to taxpayer costs, and after those hearings, she was ordered by an immigration judge.
“This is parenting 101,” he said. “You can decide to take that child with you, or you can decide to leave the child here with a relative or another spouse.
“Having a child as a US citizen does not immunize you from the laws of our country.”
When pressing Dauty’s concern that there was no proper due process, Homan expressed doubt that “the judge knows the details of the case,” adding that it was “a parent’s decision, not a government decision.”
In addition to the two-year-old, known in court documents as VML, there was also a controversy that stage 4 cancer was being sent back to the country of origin of the mother.
“The kids went with their mother,” Rubio explained. “If those kids are American citizens, if there is someone who is a father or someone here wants to envision them, they can come back to the US.
“The mother who was ultimately deported was illegally here. The children went with her mother.”
The attorney for a child with cancer claimed that the 4-year-old was sent from the US without sufficient means to keep in touch with US-based doctors while on medication or on trips.
President Trump was keen to expel the nation quickly.
Trump’s team is also fighting in court to end birthright citizenship, a policy under the 14th Amendment that automatically grants citizenship to everyone born in the United States.
Supporters of his efforts believe that by ending birthright citizenship, they will eliminate important incentives for illegal immigrants to enter the United States.
