U.S.-born children caught in deportation wave as Texas family case draws alarm
A Texas father says his U.S.-born children were swept into an immigration crackdown that has already carried American citizens across the border. One of the
A Texas father says his U.S.-born children were swept into an immigration crackdown that has already carried American citizens across the border. One of the clearest cases involved a 4-year-old boy with late-stage cancer who was deported to Honduras with his undocumented mother and sent away without medication, attorneys and reports say.
The cases, drawing scrutiny as the Trump administration presses ahead with family deportations and broader enforcement against sanctuary cities, have renewed questions about what happens when immigration agents detain parents whose children are citizens by birth. The stories now include a 5-year-old girl from Austin and a 2-year-old identified in court papers only by initials, both deported to Honduras with their mothers.
Children held in the same sweep
In one case described by White House correspondent Laura Barrón-López on PBS, two U.S. citizen siblings — ages 4 and 7 — were deported with their undocumented mother to Honduras within 24 hours of being detained. The younger child has late-stage cancer. Barrón-López said the boy had no medication with him.
The mother had a removal order dating to years earlier, after she failed to appear at a hearing soon after arriving in the United States as an unaccompanied minor. She was not aware of that order, according to the reporting. Another child, a 2-year-old girl referred to in court filings by the initials VML, was also deported to Honduras with her mother.
Those cases are part of a broader legal and political fight over how far immigration authorities can go when a parent lacks legal status but the child does not. Advocacy groups have long warned that U.S.-citizen children can be pulled into enforcement actions affecting their families, even when their own status should protect them from removal.
Texas mother, Honduras, and a week in a hotel
One of the most closely watched cases involved Génesis Ester Gutiérrez Castellanos, a 5-year-old who misses her cousins, classmates and kindergarten teachers in Austin, Texas. She was deported on Jan. 11 with her mother, Karen Guadalupe Gutiérrez Castellanos, to Honduras, a country the child had never known.
ICE agents were acting on an administrative deportation order issued in 2019 against the mother, before Génesis was born. The mother told the Guardian that she kept telling agents the girl was born in the United States. “They didn’t care,” she said, adding that officers picked up the child and told her to get into the car with her.
The pair were held for nearly a week in a hotel about 80 miles from home, without a lawyer or a hearing before a judge, before being deported, according to the report. Gutiérrez has said she plans to send the girl back to the U.S. soon with another relative.
Citizenship fights are moving into court
The cases come as the Trump administration continues an immigration crackdown that also targets sanctuary cities and has revived a broader debate over birthright citizenship. Trump has said he wants to end the longstanding right for children born in the country to undocumented parents, a move that has already triggered legal challenges.
In December, ICE also faced a separate dispute in Maryland, where a family said 22-year-old Dulce Consuelo Díaz Morales was born in the U.S. and gave agents a copy of her Maryland birth certificate. ICE disputed that account and said she is not a U.S. citizen.
For families caught in the middle, the legal arguments are playing out far from the border. The practical stakes are immediate. Children can be moved, separated from relatives, and left in limbo while lawyers fight over papers, status and the reach of immigration enforcement. The next court filings are likely to test how agencies handle U.S. citizens when a parent is ordered out.
