Child with Stage 4 cancer deported by ICE despite being US citizen, lawsuit says

Chicago Tribune

3 days ago

A 4-year-old boy's ongoing care for Stage 4 kidney cancer was interrupted when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers illegally deported him, his sister and mother 'without even a semblance of due process,' attorneys for the family say.
Though they are U.S. citizens and were born Louisiana, the boy and his 7-year-old sister were deported to Honduras along with their 25-year-old mother, who is a Honduran citizen, on April 25, according to a federal lawsuit filed in the Middle District of Louisiana on July 31. The filing uses pseudonyms for the family, referring to the brother and sister as Romeo and Ruby and their mother as Rosario.
Before their deportations, Romeo, now 5, was receiving 'life-saving' treatment at a New Orleans children's hospital for his 'rare and aggressive form' of cancer, following his diagnosis at age 2, a complaint says.
'As a direct consequence of ICE's unlawful conduct, Romeo was deprived of much-needed continuity in his treatment, and he has faced substantial health risks due to his inability to access emergency specialized care and the routine critical oncological care that was available to him in the United States,' his family's attorneys wrote in the complaint.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Romeo and his family, as well as a second family also wrongly deported by ICE under similar circumstances on April 25, according to the National Immigration Project, Gibson Dunn, Most & Associates, and Ware Immigration, groups representing the case.
The second family includes Julia, 30, a mother from Honduras. She has two daughters, Jade, 2, a U.S. citizen born in Baton Rouge, and Janelle, 11, also a Honduran citizen. Those names are also pseudonyms.
The same week of both families' deportations, Rosario and Julia separately went to what they thought were supposed to be 'regularly scheduled check-ins' with an ICE contractor.
However, officers with ICE apprehended both women and their children 'in hotel rooms' in secret, the National Immigration Project said in a July 31 news release.
ICE 'denied them the opportunity to speak to family and make decisions about or arrangements for their minor children, denied them access to counsel, and deported them within less than a day in one case and just over 2 days in the other,' the advocacy organization said.
According to the lawsuit, ICE did not let Rosario or Julia decide whether they wanted their children to come with them to Honduras or to make arrangements for them to stay in the U.S. with other loved ones.
'Given Romeo's cancer and specialized medical needs, Rosario wanted both of her U.S. citizen children to remain in the United States,' the complaint says.
DHS, however, maintains both women wanted their children with them.
In response to McClatchy News' request for comment for DHS and ICE on Aug. 11, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that 'the media and Democrat politicians are force-feeding the public false information that U.S. citizen children are being deported. This is false and irresponsible.'
'Rather than separate their families, ICE asked the mothers if they wanted to be removed with their children or if they wanted ICE to place the children with someone safe the parent designates,' McLaughlin added. 'The parents in this instance made the determination to take their children with them back to Honduras.'
The lawsuit has been brought against Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Department of Homeland Security, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, ICE and ICE Director Todd Lyons, as well as New Orleans ICE Field Office Director Brian Acuna, the office's Assistant Field Office Director Scott Ladwig and the office's former director, Mellissa Harper.
Justice Department spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre declined to comment.
After being deported in April, Rosario said in a statement shared in National Immigration Project's news release that life in Hondorus has been 'incredibly hard.'
'I don't have the resources to care for my children the way they need,' Rosario said.
The morning of April 25, ICE officers are accused of waking Rosario, Romeo and Ruby and forcing them into a van.
They drove them to an airport in the Alexandria area and had them flown to Honduras, the lawsuit says.
With her son still in need of specialized treatment for his cancer, which had spread to his lungs, she has to send Romeo 'back and forth' from Honduras to the U.S. for care, without her, according to the complaint.
'Even though she has very limited financial resources, Rosario has already had to pay for flights and travel companions to enable her children to return to the United States for Romeo's necessary medical appointments,' the complaint says.
Romeo, whose health has worsened, has been temporarily staying in the U.S. for cancer treatment, according to the filing.
The lawsuit asks the court to declare that ICE wrongly arrested, detained and deported Rosario, Romeo and Ruby, as well as Julia, Jade and Janelle, in violation of their constitutional rights.
'This whole situation has been incredibly stressful,' Julia, who is married to a U.S. citizen, the father of her daughters, said in a statement shared by the National Immigration Project.
'Returning to Honduras has meant leaving my husband behind, and that's been very hard,' she added.
In a statement to McClatchy News, National Immigration Project attorney Stephanie Alvarez-Jones said 'ICE put these families through a series of incredibly traumatizing experiences, taking actions that are completely shocking from a human perspective and illegal even by ICE's own standards.'
'ICE denied these families the fundamental opportunity to make meaningful choices about the care and custody of their children, and detained and deported U.S. citizens in flagrant violation of its own policy and the law,' Alvarez-Jones added.
The families are seeking an unspecified amount in damages and demand a jury trial.