May 10 (UPI) — The American Civil Liberties Union has dropped its federal lawsuit accusing the Department of Homeland Security of illegally deporting a U.S. child and her Honduran mother and sister.
“The ACLU dropped its lawsuit on the false claims that DHS deported a U.S. citizen,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Saturday in a news release.
The news release referred to the federal lawsuit as “baseless lawfare” against the DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“The truth is, and always has been, that the mother – who was in the country illegally – chose to bring her 2-year-old with her to Honduras when she was removed,” McLaughlin said.
“The narrative that DHS is deporting American children is false and irresponsible.”
The ACLU filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana on behalf of Trish Mack, whom the filing referred to as “best friend of V.M.L.”
“V.M.L.” are the initials used to identify the 2-year-old child who was born in the United States but whose mother, whom DHS identified as Jenny Carolina Lopez-Villela, chose to take with her to Honduras.
Lopez-Villela illegally entered the United States with V.M.L.’s older sister three times in two years, according to the DHS.
She entered in September 2019 with her oldest daughter but was “deemed inadmissible” and was given final orders of removal in March 2020.
Lopez-Villela also illegally entered the United States in March 2021 and again in August 2021, along with her oldest daughter.
She was detained by ICE in April when arriving with her daughters for a routine immigration check-in at a New Orleans facility.
When told she would be deported to Honduras, Lopez-Villela chose to bring V.M.L. with her instead of leaving her with another person to remain in the United States.
“Parents who are here illegally can take control of their departure,” DHS said of the U.S.-born children of parents who face deportation.
They can use the CBP Home app to self-deport, along with their children, and “return the legal, right way and come back to live the American dream,” the DHS news release says.
The CBP Home app is free and available for all mobile devices.
The ACLU did not respond to a request for comment made Saturday afternoon, but in an April 25th news release accused the New Orleans ICE field office of deporting three “U.S. citizen children.”
Two of those children are Lopez-Villela’s daughters, only one of whom is a U.S. citizen, according to DHS.
The other child is a 7-year-old who also left when the child’s pregnant mother was deported after being arrested in New Orleans in April.
That child’s citizenship status was neither confirmed nor denied by the DHS, but the ACLU says the child is afflicted with a rare form of cancer.
ICE deported the mother who took her child with her despite ICE having been notified of the child’s medical needs and the mother’s pregnancy, according to the ACLU.
The ACLU said the deportations were done “under deeply disturbing circumstances that raise serious due process concerns.”
“The families had lived in the United States for years and had deep ties to their communities,” the ACLU said.
They were denied access to their attorneys, which the ACLU says deprived them of legal counsel, and ICE deported the mothers and their children on an early morning flight from Louisiana.
