Hospitalized mother of newborn US citizen faces immediate deportation
Also: new military zone in Texas
THE WEEK’S US BORDER NEWS IN BRIEF:
Growing reports of cruel and possibly unlawful removals and detentions: Several troubling cases emerged in the past week of ICE separating or attempting to separate parents from children, as well as removing children who are US citizens from the country.
Recent cases include:
A Guatemalan woman who gave birth in Tucson on Wednesday, April 30, days after being arrested by the Border Patrol for illegally entering the country, is being prevented by DHS agents from seeing a lawyer and faces “expedited removal,” according to the Arizona Daily Star. The newspaper reports that her attorney is being denied access to her by agents guarding her hospital room because she has not signed a “G-28” form naming him her lawyer, nor will they allow him or the hospital to provide her one to sign. The newspaper reports that a CBP spokesperson says - although the U.S.-born child is a US citizen and cannot be deported- she is free to take him with her should she be deported.
(Syracuse University professor Austin Kocher has conducted a lengthy audio interview with her attorney, which you can listen to HERE)
UPDATED Sunday, May 4, 2025 w/DHS Statement:
Late weekend update: “(DHS) agreed to release her, and she was sent to stay with a nonprofit group in the Phoenix area, said attorney Luis Campos during an interview with the Tucson Sentinel.”
ICE deported a Honduran mother with her 2-year-old U.S.-born citizen son on April 25, shortly after officials told her to bring her children with her to a scheduled check-in in New Orleans. The agency took the mother into custody and moved to deport her, giving her just two minutes to talk with the child’s father about his future. The father had filed an emergency petition in the federal judiciary’s Western District of Louisiana the day before, BUT: “The child was put on a plane to Honduras the next morning before the court opened,” the Washington Post reported. This raised strong concerns—including from the judge assigned to the case, a Trump appointee—that the Trump administration removed a U.S. citizen child from the country against one parent’s wishes. Similar to the Tucson case, ICE is also accused of thwarting communication between the mother and a lawyer.
Also on April 25, ICE deported another Honduran mother from New Orleans with her two U.S. citizen children, aged 4 and 7. The agency, which also apprehended the mother at a scheduled check-in, was fully aware that the 4-year-old has metastatic cancer and was receiving treatment in the United States. “Not only did they deport this family against the mother’s wishes; they were deported without the child’s medication,” said attorney Mich González.
DHS deported a Cuban mother without her 1-year-old, still-breastfeeding daughter, Reuters, the Huffington Post, the Associated Press, El Toque, and other media reported. The agency claims that Heidy Sánchez, taken into custody in Tampa at a routine April 24 ICE check-in, chose to leave her daughter with a relative. Sánchez, who is married to a U.S. citizen, vehemently and tearfully denied that. “They told me to call my husband, that our daughter had to stay and that I would go.”
Other news of the week:
“National Defense Area” established along the border with Mexico in West Texas: Soldiers now have search and arrest authority in the zone near Fort Bliss. Signs warning against trespassing are being posted around the zone, and its size and boundaries have yet to be made public. (More in a US Border News article HERE).
First migrants arrested for trespassing in New Mexico’s “National Defense Area”: Now that the first 60 feet of New Mexico’s border with Mexico is considered Defense Department property, the federal government has arrested 130 people for entry into a military reservation. Penalties could reach a $100,000 fine or one year in prison.
“Reconciliation” mega-spending bill sails through House committees: Committees in the House of Representatives began work in earnest on a massive spending bill. More than $150 billion in new spending would go to border walls, detention, deportations, building up border security forces, and technology. Bills would also charge fees to migrants applying for statuses, including protection from harm.
Judicial updates: In Washington, D.C., a federal judge sounded skeptical about the Trump administration’s claims that a migrant “invasion” warrants a shutdown of access to asylum at the border. Another judge ordered funding restored for attorneys representing undocumented children, while another prohibited Border Patrol from carrying out warrantless immigration stops in Central California.
NOTE: This weekly summary was adapted from a far more comprehensive one by WOLA.org, which you can read in full HERE.
(If you found this summary helpful, I invite you to financially support WOLA’s work).
FINALLY, IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
(Stories US Border News published during the past week):
One of three buses set afire in Los Cabos/La Paz Mexico in the Mexicsn state of Baja California Sur on April 24, 2025 Photo by @CaliforniaScan (via x.com) Urgent Warning: Cartel Violence @ Mexico Tourist Spot
Unrest in the state of Baja California Sur
Raids Target Cartel Border Outposts
"Scout Sites" destroyed
Texas Border: Cartels Lose $91M to US Feds
April meth busts add up
I am committed to delivering a US Border Newsletter that is not only educational and insightful but also engaging and easy to digest in five minutes or less.
(How am I doing? Let me know in the comments!)
Abrazos,
Jack Beavers
Jack Beavers - US Border News 
She and child send back
Awesome. Anchor baby game fail