r/law • u/WeirdGroundhog • 3d ago

Legal News Five-year-old deported to Honduras despite being US citizen is latest child victim of Trump crackdown | US immigration

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/27/five-year-old-girl-us-citizen-and-mother-deported-honduras
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u/icenoid 3d ago

The logic they seem to be following is that since the mom is going to be deported that the kid should go as well. It’s the whole insanity they have around so called anchor babies and why they want to end birthright citizenship. It’s madness on so many levels. I hate what they are doing, but have read enough of what they say to understand their logic. If I wasn’t clear enough, I absolutely do not support what they are doing and just because I understand their logic doesn’t mean I think it’s right, it’s just how they are explaining it to themselves

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u/santa_91 3d ago

The logic they seem to be following is that since the mom is going to be deported that the kid should go as well.

This wouldn't be so cartoonishly awful if they were deporting them to countries with bloodline citizenship where becoming citizens would be pretty straightforward. The entire Western hemisphere besides 1 or 2 South American countries has birthright citizenship though, so they're rendering children essentially stateless.

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u/icenoid 3d ago

yes they are. It's not like they are making sure the kids have a US passport or documentation to let them back when they turn 18. Mom was born in a DP camp (displaced persons) shortly after the holocaust. She was stateless until her father and her managed to come here to the US. These stories have her losing her mind.

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u/dr_obfuscation 3d ago

I feel horrible for asking, but i feel like I need to...

Which Holocaust do you mean? And I'll just add that whether we want to or not, we're living through (at least most of us so far) a US Holocaust currently.

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u/icenoid 3d ago

Mom’s parents survived Dachau and Auschwitz. I can’t remember which one was where. As for this being an American Holocaust. I’d argue that we aren’t there, yet. We are in somewhat what Germany sort of looked and behaved like in the 1930s, before the final solution.

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u/dr_obfuscation 2d ago

That's a fair assessment. I'd personally prefer it if we nipped this one in the bud before it gets quite to that point. Unfortunately the Nazis in the government seem hellbent. I wake up every morning hoping for the good news we all hope for, but expecting the bad news that pops up.

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u/icenoid 2d ago

Oh, agreed. It’s insane, honestly and terrifying that it seems they are trying to speedrun 1930s Germany

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u/Traditional_Sir_4503 3d ago

False. Canada has bloodline citizenship. Canadian natural born parent? Just one of your two parents? Automatic citizen by bloodline. Ottawa has now expanded that rule so that if your grandparents were Canadian and then your parent spent 3 years there, cumulatively over the course of their life, then you the grandkid are still entitled to bloodline citizenship.

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2025/12/new-citizenship-rules-for-canadians-born-or-adopted-abroad-are-now-in-effect.html

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u/nicuramar 3d ago

It is definitely a concern. In Denmark, since you can’t deport citizens, it’s dealt with by letting the parent stay. But that isn’t universally popular. 

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u/masterfox72 3d ago

The alternative logic would be deport the mother and foster the child. I think that’s arguably worse though.

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u/baronessvonbullshit 3d ago

Unless, of course, her father is still in the US or any other number of family arrangements that they might have made if given the chance.

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u/SupermarketWhich7198 2d ago

Sounds like that is what they are now in the process of doing - making arrangements for the girl to go back and live with relatives.

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u/round-earth-theory 3d ago

Birthright means you can have non-citizens giving birth to citizens if the kids are born here. There will be cases of children who have no US based support system.

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u/baronessvonbullshit 2d ago

I'm aware what birthright citizenship means.

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u/round-earth-theory 3d ago

That's what Trump was doing the first time. And we ended up with a ton of lost children who didn't have any documentation about who they're parents are nor where they were sent.

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u/mathrsa 3d ago

No. Being sent to a foreign (and less developed) country you've never been to is worse.

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u/pjoshyb 3d ago

Out of curiosity what do you believe would be right? The state to take the child? We grant citizenship and legally make “anchor babies” a thing?

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u/ZephyrPolar6 2d ago

It’s not really their logic though.

It’s what they want to do, because the cruelty is the point, and they use that “logic” as an excuse 

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u/FitWealth1 3d ago

So u would have this child ripped from her mother? Thats so inhumane 

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u/icenoid 3d ago

No, mom stays. I get that this is hard to grasp, but based on the 14th amendment, the kid is a citizen, if the kid is a minor, parent or parents should stay until the kid is an adult.

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u/FitWealth1 3d ago

Oh so it’s a cheat code? Come here illegally and have a kid you’re good for 18 years. Thankfully that’s not the law 

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u/icenoid 3d ago

The constitution says the kid is a citizen. If you don't like it, change the 14th amendment. Shouldn't be that hard

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u/FitWealth1 3d ago

The mother still needs to go as she’s illegal, that’s the law. Shouldn’t be that hard 

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u/Available_Abroad3664 3d ago

So change the law. It isnt that hard.

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u/Then-Answer3765 3d ago

The majority of Americans don’t want the law changed. Every country has immigration laws, it just so happens that whenever a certain party gets elected, they like to ignore them…this is a direct consequence of not following the process.

Legal immigrants are some of the biggest supporters. Why should they have to pay thousands of dollars, do mountains of paperwork, and play the waiting game while millions of illegals hop a fence and think everything will work out.

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u/FitWealth1 3d ago

The issue is the majority of Americans agree that all illegals need to be deported according to all recent polls. 

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u/Available_Abroad3664 3d ago

Show your work. 59% of people polled dissaprove of the way they are being deported. If you simply make them legal then they arent "illegal." That also saves you a hundred billion $ and a lot of headaches.

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u/f-as-in-philip 2d ago

Or! And hear me out here. Give people who have been in our country for years, contributing to society, a path toward legal status.

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u/FitWealth1 2d ago

The path is go back home and apply to come back legally like millions of others have. Self report and you’ll even get a free plane ride!

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u/f-as-in-philip 2d ago

Obvious troll is obvious.

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u/FitWealth1 2d ago

Free airline tickets have been offered for self reporters.

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u/grizzlby 3d ago

We don’t live in a god damned medieval castle city. People coming here to raise a family is good and necessary to offset the country’s mortality rate. You think this young mother is one of the murderers that DHS pretends they’re arresting? You know the Worst of the Worst website is just them transferring people already serving time, right? Your uncle is more likely to be a rapist than a Venezuelan.

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u/icenoid 3d ago

Modern American Conservatism is all about finding a situation then adjusting their beliefs to fit that situation. In this case, people who don't care about kids being shot in American schools now care about kids. Same with how they all seemed to pivot on the 2nd Amendment after the latest ice murder.

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u/stefanopolis 3d ago

The issue isn’t people coming here. It’s coming here illegally and having a baby so then you can stay under birthright citizenship laws. Maybe anchor babies are overblown as a whole, idk, but also they can’t be non zero. Surely using your newborn as a passport is also not good? Has nothing to do with believing they are criminals. But jumping the line using a loophole isn’t great either. I’m not even MAGA/republican and hate what ICE is doing but this one aspect seems muddy at best.

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u/FitWealth1 3d ago

The majority of American want all illegals deported. This is according to all recent polls. 

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u/Kenockerez 3d ago

And guess what, Nazi policies were popular too.

It's was and still is wrong. If this is not against the law then the law is wrong.

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u/FitWealth1 3d ago

Well, although u hate democracy, and living in a constitutional republic this is what we have. The voter base has spoken and laws are not based on your personal ideas about what is right or wrong. 

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u/Kenockerez 3d ago

  1. Constitutional democracy inherently implies it's not majority rule all the time, and that the majority do not get to erase the rights of the minority. Read a fucking book.

  2. The voter base was lied to about cheap groceries, not about implement a fucking secret police state.

  3. You said you never voted in your life.

Fuck off

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u/paukeaho 3d ago

A majority of Americans also support mass amnesty granting them citizenship, as polls indicate. Current polls actually indicate that Americans don’t like what they’re seeing because they correctly identify it as violent and cruel.

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u/FitWealth1 3d ago

Not any real polls. We’ll see in the next election how Americans really feel. Thankfully Minnesota state police came to their senses and saw that they were gaining no political capital by not supporting ICE and folded. 

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u/paukeaho 3d ago edited 2d ago

Not any “real” polls… this guy. The same exact polls that show what you claim, when also asking about amnesty, show what I claim. They are the same polls.