Ice deported boy with cancer and two other US citizen children to Honduras, suit alleges

Source: The Guardian

Ice deported boy with cancer and two other US citizen children to Honduras, suit alleges

Suit filed in Louisiana says agency didn’t give parents choice as to whether children should be deported with them

Edward Helmore
Thu 14 Aug 2025 15.22 BST
Last modified on Thu 14 Aug 2025 16.08 BST

A lawsuit filed in Louisiana on behalf of two mothers and their four minor children, including one with cancer, claims the two families were unlawfully denied due process and deported by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to Honduras in April 2025.

The lawsuit, which names the attorney general, Pam Bondi, Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, and various Ice officials as defendants, alleges Ice violated its own policies, and multiple federal laws, when officers secretly detained the families, denied access to counsel and swiftly deported them to Honduras, ignoring legal filings.

The claim, JLV v Acuna, filed by the National Immigration Project, says that three of the children – a four-year-old boy with stage 4 kidney cancer, his seven-year-old sister and a two-year-old girl – were included in the deportation sweep despite being American citizens.

The parents “were never given a choice as to whether their children should be deported with them and were prohibited from contacting their counsel or having meaningful contact with their families to arrange for the care of their children”, the lawsuit claims.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/14/ice-lawsuit-louisiana-immigration-deportation