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ICE Deports 3 U.S. Citizen Children Held Incommunicado Prior to the Deportation

• clusterfook 1y ago
  <<Insert Rage>> But for interesting HN discussion... anyone got any juice on why this is happening. Is there orders going down the chain of command from the president to do this sort of thing. Was this behaviour always there but less reported before? Are they more emboldened by the current environment?
  • ohgr 1y ago
    As my wise but now throughly dead German grandmother said: ”Do you think the nazis appeared out of thin air? No they were everywhere just waiting for someone to enable them with a label and an ideology.” I suspect something analogous is happening here and it’s similarly not pretty. Hopefully it’ll get nipped in the bud quickly. My fellow citizens scare me more than the government does.
    • surgical_fire 1y ago
      The interesting thing about this parallel, is that the "final solution" in Germany was final because it was not the original solution. Originally they wanted to, well, deport the undesirables to some far off country, initially to Madagascar if memory serves. Managing mass incarceration and deportation is a difficult task however, and these people (both then and now) are not exactly competent at anything beyond bravado. Watching this unfolding from afar is interesting, because I can do so with some healthy detachment. If I lived across the pond I would be pretty desperate right now.
      • watwut 1y ago
        The end goal was world domination, as in owning whole world. So, they would eventually come to Madagascar too. Majority of Jews killed in Hocaust were not Germans. They were from conquered countries. So, while there was some Madagascar plans floating and while they tried to deport as many German Jews (majority of who were atheists, considered themselves Germans etc) in first stages, they were aware there is going to be showdown later on anyway.
      • xedrac 1y ago
        [flagged]
        • codewench 1y ago
          Seeing as how this article is talking about the deportation of US citizens, I'm going to question what exactly you mean by "here illegally". Expanding the argument: I've just decided that you are illegally, and will thus be deported. As there is no due process, my word is law, have fun wherever you end up I literally do not care. Does that seem fair? And before arguing "well this wouldn't happen, I'm not here illegally", again, this is an article about the deportation of US citizens. Children no less.
          • deleted 1y ago
            [deleted]
          • rdtsc 1y ago
            > US citizens. Children no less. But their parents aren’t. Parents can be deported. So let’s imagine they did that. We’d have an article how cruel they stole / kidnapped a child from their parents. Would that be better? Having a child doesn’t automatically provide a legal cover for staying and not getting deported. Maybe that’s a risk the parents didn’t know about?
            • NemoNobody 1y ago
              I'm all right with changing that rule - anchor babies means we get two people and one them is brand new. Considering people are the most valuable resource, I think we should take all the potential anchors possible - let's give both parents citizenship automatically if they are parents of a citizen. Let's fast track Aunts and Uncles too - maybe we can get the whole family.
              • rdtsc 1y ago
                > let's give both parents citizenship automatically if they are parents of a citizen. Yeah that might work. Wonder if there is any legislative effort on that front. I guess with the current congress it won't happen, so perhaps nobody is trying.
      • afpx 1y ago
        Unfortunately, if this follows history, the safest thing to do is to not do anything, blend in, and wait for external help. Afaik, only a handful of Germans who resisted survived. But, I don’t see any help for us coming anytime soon.
        • ohgr 1y ago
          I suspect it won’t come. The US embedded itself in everyone else’s business and is now withdrawing so we all have our own problems to deal with.
        • giraffe_lady 1y ago
          Then honor demands that we die. I think there are still other outcomes possible but if that's how it is that's how it is.
          • afpx 1y ago
            Yeah, there are some possibilities. For example, if a strong resistance leader emerged. But, are there any good candidates for that role? I can't think of any.
            • giraffe_lady 1y ago
              Things like this are stopped by movements, not individual heroes. There are almost certainly organizations in your area already working against this. No one is coming to save us. But if anyone does it is the people who were already trying to, bolstered by people like you who see it now. Get in there.
              • afpx 1y ago
                (Edited based on comment below) I recognize the optimism, but realistically, without a strong and strategic leader, coordination will collapse into disorganization and infighting. Historical examples like Occupy Wall Street demonstrate that leaderless movements tend to self-sabotage and generate instability without achieving meaningful outcomes.
      • southernplaces7 1y ago
        >Managing mass incarceration and deportation is a difficult task however, and these people (both then and now) are not exactly competent at anything beyond bravado. The holocaust also required mass incarceration and deportation, except that the huge undertaking of deportation was towards death camps in occupied territories instead of some foreign land. On the first point above, I caution against thinking that it would be much easier; it wasn't really, they just decided that they wanted to kill the people they considered undesirable after all. On the second point, it's worth noting that the efforts at expulsion partly failed because many other countries, despite knowing of the brutal repression being suffered by the jews (and others but the jews in particular) decided to stonewall most avenues of exit from Nazi domains. Deportation would have still been terrible, but at least it would have put millions of eventual victims outside the reach of gas chambers and death squads. Such as it was, a sort of tacit complicity of indifference didn't allow that to happen, by others who weren't even necessarily supporters of the Nazis. In either case, be careful about calling evil people practicing evil ends incompetent. In so many ways they were very competent at far more than simple bravado, and underestimating the capabilities of barbaric monsters is always dangerous for future lessons.
        • surgical_fire 1y ago
          > be careful about calling evil people practicing evil ends incompetent. The Nazi were a mess, plagued with infighting, and completely incapable of measuring the strength of their opponents, which eventually led to their downfall. Incompetent evil people can still do a lot of harm until they screw up for good. This doesn't stop them being incompetent.
          • southernplaces7 1y ago
            >The Nazi were a mess, plagued with infighting, and completely incapable of measuring the strength of their opponents, which eventually led to their downfall. no the Nazis weren't entirely a mess or completely incompetent. There was lots of infighting, partly deliberately designed to be that way by Hitler's tactics for organizing his own subordinate leadership levels, but there was also a massive amount of military, industrial and logistical competence and a robust amount of cohesion and careful, powerful cooperation on fundamental aims. Had there not been, the Nazi's never would have risen to power so effectively, formed their dictatorship so effectively or managed a colossal war against multiple enemies for so many years so effectively, and only been defeated at such a gargantuan cost in lives and resources. The Nazis underestimated the military strength of their enemies, but not nearly so badly as to not wage very effective war and pose a very, very serious threat to these enemies for several years. I really suggest a book called "The Wages of Destruction: the making and breaking of the Nazi Economy" by Adam Tooze, as a nice basic primer on how wrong these ideas of supposedly incompetent Nazis are. The above is all deviating a bit from the topic at hand but with this sidestep into a look at the Nazis, you're working from a simplistic caricature view of a more complex situation with complex evil people, and I fear that this is also all too common when many critics today view the Trump government. It's not staffed entirely by caricaturesque evil idiots. Many of its supporters are intelligent and cohesive in their guiding methodologies. (Also, no, the above isn't to compare the bad actions of Trump's government to the completely unrestrained monstrosities of the Nazis. I'm comparing defects of external analysis)
    • sitkack 1y ago
      I too have noticed the same language coming out of folks here, folks that have had accounts for over 10 or 15 years. They were always here, but now they emboldened and they are doing their best to make sure that overton window stays very very open on the right.
      • ohgr 1y ago
        I had a friend until recently. Really nice guy. Always looking out for people. Never said a bad word. In the last couple of years he turned into a nasty piece of work jumping on every politicised story out there and treating it as gospel. He alienated everyone around him. It turns out that some people don't have a mind of their own and are waiting for orders. Here is no exception. Look at the foaming at the mouth praise of the second coming of Microsoft when Satya took over. And where we are now? Look at the hype as well - blockchain, crypto and AI now. Mindless people slithering all over everything. In fact I find a lot of the people in the technology sector to either be entirely morally bankrupt or lack any kind of self or societal awareness of their speech of actions. It disgusts me. I've been on HN pretty much since day one but the accounts last perhaps 6 months before I tire of it. I moved out of the tech-first industry about 10 years ago and into a position of tech as a tool not a reason for a business existing and there are better people here.
        • kentm 1y ago
          I’ve been in tech for about 2 decades now, and the general culture has always been to disregard ethics and social impact. How many times have we heard “We’re just building tools. Tools are apolitical and ethically neutral, it’s how you use them that matters!” It turns out that is actually not the case. Plus the insistence that we can cordon off an area of life and designate it non political is incredibly common but also pretty naive (and dare I say privileged). That is to say, we in the tech industry often encourage this sort of moral bankruptcy and like to pretend we’re above it all.
          • ohgr 1y ago
            I think a lot of that attitude is self-justification to proceed as they intend without moral compass. Personally I can't do that. Everything we do has a consequence. I've got a copy of Careless People sitting in front of me I'm scared to read at the moment.
    • stackskipton 1y ago
      Since we are quoting, I quote FDR: "Democracy has disappeared in several other great nations--not because the people of those nations disliked democracy, but because they had grown tired of unemployment and insecurity, of seeing their children hungry while they sat helpless in the face of government confusion and government weakness through lack of leadership in government." True, we are not in bad shape like 1930s Germany or United States but as neoliberalism rot has really set in, people feel economically shaky, and government clearly is not responsive to them. Combined with Social Media warping people brain on what is "success" and "strong man" who will take care of things is clearly appealing. Many of them can also be turned around but it's going to take some doing.
  • elmerfud 1y ago
    Your last statement is correct. They are just emboldened by the current political environment. Any law enforcement has a problem where all they see is criminals all day everyday, now we know they aren't always criminals, but that's their view point. There should be sufficient checks and balances to ensure that due process is still upheld. What we're seeing now is the lack of checks because law enforcement feels they will never be held accountable for violating due process. This, while likely not a direct order of the president, it is an environment that his rhetoric has fostered. Even in the cases where the supreme court has said, unanimously, that people have been deported improperly this environment causes those in positions to correct it to ignore the courts. I support the general idea of expedited deportation of those here illegally, those without valid documents to be here, I don't automatically have a problem if there is greater restrictions on entering or issuing new visas, but I have a major problem with violating due process and these kind of mistakes that's are a result of lack of due diligence. The courts need to get more heavily involved here. It's easy to blame the president but short of some directive telling people to violate the law the blame is misdirected (until it's election time). The blame needs to be on those individuals doing this thing or seeing it and ignoring it. This is where the courts need to totally strip away default qualified immunity, especially for immigration officers. Because qualified immunity allows them to just say they were following orders without them having to evaluate if what they are doing is legal or not. I believe if qualified immunity was gone a lot of this nonsense would stop. They would make sure that anyone who was deported was meant to be deported. I have a friend who is here legally awaiting an asylum hearing, been waiting for 5 years. They were stopped by police for a valid reason and, from what was described the police had probable cause, but the charge itself is very minor. Because she's documented waiting asylum they contacted immigration, for no reason. There was no probable cause to think she was in violation of her immigration status, but they still contacted them and they requested she be held. So now she detained and there's probable cause to do so but it's immigration so they can. This is where no qualified immunity would make these officers think twice. They know they have no probable cause to continue to hold her beyond the initial charge. Without qualified immunity they would understand that continuing to hold someone after a judge has allowed their release means that they would lose their house their life their future. So I really think we need to end to qualified immunity across the board. Have the people who are supposed to protect us and be responsible for their actions.
  • eviks 1y ago
    All of the above?
  • potato3732842 1y ago
    Because it's always been happening. If they didn't already have this sort of abuse practiced they wouldn't be so good at it. The ACLU used to write basically the same exact pieces about the DEA Maybe it's 10% or 20% more prevalent or worse, I can't say from my vantage point, but it's a difference of degree, not a categorical one. You read these stories and they read exactly like all the other stories of how all sorts of "criminals" have been abused by the system for years, especially when they have a political blank check to do do. Making it hard for people to get a lawyer, moving too fast for people to appeal anything or get outside scrutiny is exactly how these systems have always behaved when they feel like it. Now it's ICE and not DEA or whatever but this is basically the level of abuse with which the authorities have always treated with. It's nice that the public is paying attention now, but I have very little hope that it will actually lead to systemic changes.
    • hartator 1y ago
      Yes, nothing much changed law-wise. No due process at the borders is a shame both now and before, but hopefully this time there is a willingness to change things. Probably not at the next swing of power.
      • ty6853 1y ago
        My guy will do better with the power they never destroy.
      • deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      • whimsicalism 1y ago
        It is genuinely an extremely difficult challenge to manage illegal crossings if every individual must be processed through the full U.S. legal system which has massive resourcing and backlog problems (3m+ cases). Voters across the political spectrum have made it unmistakably clear — in poll after poll — that they are deeply dissatisfied with the current rate of illegal and asylum-seeking entries. Is there a morally permissible way to enact their will?
  • HDThoreaun 1y ago
    The suffering is the point. The current administration thinks that by publicly treating anyone vaguely foreign horribly they will be able to end the allure illegal immigration. I guess the dirty secret is that this sort of stuff has been happening, the difference is that now the government wants everyone to know about it
  • somenameforme 1y ago
    Every day across the world thousands of people are removed from countries around the world for violating immigration laws. Except in cases of where it coincided with criminality, it's always going to be very ugly, because it means somebody had built up a life for themselves somewhere and that is now ended due to them having been born in a different place and then overstayed their permission, or never received such, to stay somewhere else. Like in this case, what do you propose as an alternative with a precedent that you think could be agreeable to most people? The parents were in the country illegally, and the children's citizenship was solely one of birthright. Any sort of "pleasant" outcome would effectively require turning birthright citizenship into defacto citizenship for the parents as well, at least if they can stay illegally for long enough. That's not only completely unrealistic, but also a complete slap in the face to the millions of people who try to migrate legally and are refused entry.
    • yodsanklai 1y ago
      > it's always going to be very ugly, It doesn't have to be as ugly as what is described in the article.
    • apical_dendrite 1y ago
      > Any sort of "pleasant" outcome would effectively require turning birthright citizenship into defacto citizenship for the parents as well, at least if they can stay illegally for long enough. No, there are lots of immigration statuses between "illegal" and "citizen". DAPA, which was the Obama administration's policy, gave parents of US citizens a status where they could get temporary renewable work permits and exemption for deportation. This was not citizenship, or even a status that could allow someone to eventually become a citizen.
      • pclmulqdq 1y ago
        Most of those statuses are called "visas" and they have been around for a while. Obama's innovation was giving a weird form of status ("we know you broke the law and we aren't enforcing it") to people who broke the law when crossing the border. Most people with a non-illegal and non-citizen status are supposed to apply for that status before crossing the border.
  • miltonlost 1y ago
    > anyone got any juice on why this is happening. Because Trump is an abject racist with a white nationalist policy who ran on deporting what he finds to be undesirable. It's not hard.
  • Larrikin 1y ago
    >anyone got any juice on why this is happening. Their skin color and national origin is offensive to the president and the percentage of the country that voted for him.
  • pge 1y ago
    The current administration has set targets for numbers of people deported(which ICE is currently behind on). That creates an incentive to skip due process in order to get more people deported more quickly (and the awareness that there will no consequences for doing so probably contributes as well)
    • scarface_74 1y ago
      And while trying to meet those numbers, they are being specifically told not to do mass raids of farms and other business in red states that will hurt Trump voters
      • mgkimsal 1y ago
        I suspect it's Trump donors they may be looking to spare, at least a bit. I don't get the impression they care about previous Trump voters very much, except to buy merch at this point.
      • morkalork 1y ago
        Also, businesses caught employing illegal immigrants seemingly don't face any punishment either. Migrants wouldn't enter the US illegally if they couldn't find employment, and they wouldn't find employment if businesses were harshly punished. As it is, everyone is incentivized to keep this cat and mouse game going.
        • _DeadFred_ 1y ago
          THe FBI/ICE sure cam after a judge that helped an illegal immigrant. I'm sure the FBI/ICE is using the same zeal to go after employers who helped them.
          • tomrod 1y ago
            I'm a bit hazy on the story, but wasn't ICE interfering with her court?
  • doctorpangloss 1y ago
    Previously with the family separation policy it was part of an aggressive campaign led by Stephen Miller personally. There are now a few more people who want to do this as much as he does, all in the administration. It was Trump who hired those people, and then it was Trump who rescinded family separations and fired Neilsen over it, because it made bad media. The public has a template for exactly how to stop it. All that said, this is what the Republican base wants.
  • UmGuys 1y ago
    Are you serious? Trump campaigned on spreading cruelty to these people and he's doing it. There's financial incentive to keep people in private prisons, and we're paying to send them to concentration camps, so it's not money. It's just bigotry.
  • yibg 1y ago
    Deportations have always happened of course. But details matter. What’s making this administration different are: - sloppiness and seeming cruelty of the process, intentional or not - disregard for judicial rulings - pushing boundaries with regards to who (those with legal status) and how (sending people to foreign prisons)
• globalnode 1y ago
  theyve started arresting judges too, rip.
  • llm_nerd 1y ago
    Bondi -- an outrageously partisan hack who is destroying the DOJ -- reached peak irony when she stated that "no one is above the law" in talking about that case. Donald Trump and his administration are on an absolute crime spree[1]. Insider trading, launching shit-coins and engaging in self-dealing, completely disregarding both the constitution and the courts, up to and including the Supreme Court. The US is currently a lawless banana republic with the dumbest autocrat in history. That's the one saving grace: This herd of absolute imbeciles are so catastrophically stupid -- a cluster of plastic-faced Fox news clowns -- that they are bound to destroy everything so completely that they are overthrown out of necessity. Will the US survive this? Given that it voted for this rapist, charity-stealing moron twice, hopefully not. The fractured nations that come out of this hopefully have a better path. [1] Ignoring that he is giving the most laughably corrupt pardons in history, to outrageously guilty thieves, fraudsters and human effluence. Trump's grotesque abuse, and quite literal selling, of pardons should be the impetus for whatever husk remains of the dissolved United States to abolish presidential pardons.
    • enlightenedfool 1y ago
      [flagged]
      • pixelatedindex 1y ago
        From the way things are going now, the previous administration had a perfectly able president.
    • kylehotchkiss 1y ago
      I try to not let it get to me by telling myself they all are just victims of lead poisoning
    • tartieret 1y ago
• zarzavat 1y ago
  "Deports" is wrong word for removing a citizen. "Expels" would be more appropriate.
  • estebarb 1y ago
    There are already words for that: banished, disappeared, forced exiled, concentration camp victim... just reuse terms already used to describe crimes done by nazis and other fascist goverments.
  • bryant 1y ago
    > "Deports" is wrong word for removing a citizen. "Expels" would be more appropriate. While this is true, the use of what's technically the wrong word highlights that the wrong action is being applied. The action is a deportation. The targets are people who must/shall not ever be deported. Therefore the headline immediately gets attention for concisely describing a violation.
    • OutOfHere 1y ago
      I think what happened here is that the parents were here illegally. The children just had to accompany the parents. I find it quite possible that the children will be allowed back in once they no longer have to depend on their parents.
      • davorak 1y ago
        The reports of no due process or little to no due process for citizens[1], that is the main point to my understanding. Due process for [1] would at least include making sure the proper documentation was in order so they could easily return in the future, making sure any health care needs could be meet in Honduras or any other critical needs, (not all the details are in but) the father in [1] wanted the child to stay in the US, but they were deported anyway. I am not seeing all the details I want, but given the reports of 4 year olds having to defend themselves without representation it is easy to believe these reports of no or little due process for child citizens. [1] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/25/us-citizen-deportation-donald-trump-00311631 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/25/us-citizen-deportat...
• k310 1y ago
  Why the deliberate atrocities? I read an article that starts with this proposition [1] > The real question, however, is not how America lost its way. We know the mechanics of it. It lost its way in large measure because Donald Trump, a Pied Piper of malice, led it astray, though one can’t lay all of that or even most of it on Trump. The American people, nearly half of those who voted, in their infinite wisdom empowered Trump to do so. They were looking for a Trump, yearning for a Trump, to do so. > They wanted a Trump to destroy the nation. They hoped he would destroy the nation both by sowing chaos and discord and by supervising a demolition of our institutions and values. So the real question we should be asking is why so many of our fellow Americans desired this, and what deep proclivities Trump drew upon to prompt the nation, at least a good part of it, to self-immolate. What does Trump give them? Having read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as a young person, this is reminiscent of a fascist playbook. Except that it seems that social media are in effect creating a culture of resentment, projection of weakness and failure onto others and driving it for profit with unfiltered echo chambers. The cause and effect seems to be playing to a vengeful base in order to keep legislators in line until their branch and the judicial branch are rendered impotent. Exploring the parallels with Nazi Germany, the amassing of data was paramount. > DOGE is building a master database for immigration enforcement, sources say [2] Further, > TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TEXTED COLLEGE PROFESSORS’ PERSONAL PHONES TO ASK IF THEY’RE JEWISH [3] > The school later told staff it had provided the Trump administration with personal contact information for faculty members. > The messages, sent to most Barnard professors’ personal cellphones, asked them to complete a voluntary survey about their employment. > “Please select all that apply,” said the second question in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC, survey. > The choices followed: (including) “I am Jewish”; “I am Israeli”; “I have shared Jewish/Israeli ancestry”; “I practice Judaism”; and “Other.” Data? IBM provided Germany with tabulating equipment to manage "undesirables" [4] [5] The notion of cultural supremacy resonates with some in Silicon Valley, land of big and targeted data. 'Reboot' Revealed: Elon Musk's CEO-Dictator Playbook [6] Silicon Valley Whistleblowers Warn Elon Musk 'Hijacking' Republicans to Control Entire US Government [7] PDF of their letter. [8] 630K [1] https://whowhatwhy.org/culture/the-agonizing-work-of-art-that-helps-explain-trumps-america/ https://whowhatwhy.org/culture/the-agonizing-work-of-art-tha... [2] https://www.yahoo.com/news/doge-building-master-database-immigration-160550351.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/doge-building-master-database-imm... [3] https://theintercept.com/2025/04/23/trump-eeoc-barnard-columbia-texts-jewish/ https://theintercept.com/2025/04/23/trump-eeoc-barnard-colum... [4] https://allthatsinteresting.com/ibm-nazis-ww2/3 https://allthatsinteresting.com/ibm-nazis-ww2/3 [5] https://allthatsinteresting.com/ibm-nazis-ww2 https://allthatsinteresting.com/ibm-nazis-ww2 [6] https://www.thenerdreich.com/reboot-elon-musk-ceo-dictator-doge/ https://www.thenerdreich.com/reboot-elon-musk-ceo-dictator-d... [7] https://bylinetimes.com/2025/02/07/silicon-valley-whistleblowers-warn-elon-musk-hijacking-republicans-to-control-entire-us-government/ https://bylinetimes.com/2025/02/07/silicon-valley-whistleblo... [8] https://america2.news/content/files/2025/02/Musk-NRx-Memo-February-5-2025.pdf https://america2.news/content/files/2025/02/Musk-NRx-Memo-Fe...
• xtiansimon 1y ago
  Of course the administration was lying when it said they would only target “criminals”. Of course it’s impossible to know who “really” is a critical mastermind. (Comic book lives) /s Everyone should pay attention and amplify these stories of targeted non-criminal families, because the “radical left” is next. Joking/not-Joking Here’s another family in Washington state, “A high schooler stays back as his family, separated by deportation, returns to Guatemala” APRIL 26, 2025 WEEKEND EDITION SATURDAY https://www.npr.org/2025/04/26/nx-s1-5330896/a-high-schooler-stays-back-as-his-family-separated-by-deportation-returns-to-guatemala https://www.npr.org/2025/04/26/nx-s1-5330896/a-high-schooler...
  • croes 1y ago
    The target only criminals, they just didn’t tell who they see as criminal.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• riehwvfbk 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • viraptor 1y ago
    Downvoted/flagged trolling. Of course people can think of a better right thing to do in this case.
    • ty6853 1y ago
      I honestly cannot. There is almost nothing worse than losing your kids. It might be worse than death. The humane solution is to allow a deported parent to keep them.
      • viraptor 1y ago
        Ok, let's try some empathy and humane thinking: you don't throw out either of them in that case.
        • ty6853 1y ago
          So basically create a huge incentive to drag very sick kids through the darien gap and cartel land with no real plan for foid and housing of their kids? If i did 1% of that someone would call cps to take my kids.
          • viraptor 1y ago
            The incentive already exists. But this case is about US citizen kids, not kids brought in. So concentrating on that: > The families, who had lived in the United States for years and had deep ties to their communities > Both families have possible immigration relief The current actions did not make sense and didn't make anything better or solve any problems.
• thrance 1y ago
  Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/3081/ https://xkcd.com/3081/
• asimpletune 1y ago
  The purpose of this evil is to spread fear, provoke a response and get publicity, push and prod the system for weakness/loyalty, condition their supporters to accept these atrocities as normal and necessary, and to communicate the blueprint by example, as it gets repeatedly acted out in public. The message is this is how we're operating, so if anything looks weird to you, trust the plan because we're on the same team (wink wink). I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing domestic terrorism and public lawlessness go unpunished if it's directed towards immigrants, journalists, judges, and other 'enemies'.
  • sophacles 1y ago
    It's already started. Remember all those pardons for the Jan 6 terrorists?
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • aprilthird2021 1y ago
    Yeah the judge pardoned after stealing money meant for a slain officer's memorial and used that money on her own plastic surgery was pardoned by Trump too
• krosaen 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • cagenut 1y ago
    it is cruel. the cruelty is the point.
  • pclmulqdq 1y ago
    From the article, we don't really know what happened to the children in terms of process. All we know is that the parents were not allowed to communicate.
  • gyudin 1y ago
    Usually at least one of parents is allowed to legally stay to take care of a kid.
    • neilk 1y ago
      I am not a lawyer, but as far as I know this is completely wrong. There is a conspiracy theory that “anchor babies” will help undocumented parents avoid deportation from the US. As far as I can tell, the usual thing that happens when undocumented parents of a US citizen are deported is that they have to give the child to a citizen relative to raise, or they take the child with them. It seems to be extremely rare, though “prosecutorial discretion” can allow for a parent to remain in the US. There is no guarantee; an undocumented parent can and is often deported later, sometimes for minor crimes. I couldn’t find any stats about how often this happens but immigration consultants stress to their clients that they can’t rely on it. If the undocumented parents have been in the country for 10 years they can apply for relief for deportation but that is capped at 4,000 cases annually. If the child remains in the US until they become an adult, and can plausibly sponsor a relative, then they can also apply to reunify with their parent. The deported parent may have to spend a minimum of a decade outside the US.
  • padjo 1y ago
    Kinda mind boggling to me that you would ask chatgpt and then post the answer as if that adds something to the discussion.
• switch007 1y ago
  The value of citizenship is being eroded each year, with governments increasingly keen to strip people of citizenship [0]. First they came for the terrorists, then they came for the dual citizenship lesser criminals. We're getting a glimpse of who's next. The Dutch government wanted to strip citizenship from people convicted of a crime with an "antisemitic element" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/26/how-idea-of-stripping-citizenship-for-crimes-spread-across-europe https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/26/how-idea-of-st...
  • harvey9 1y ago
    "First they came for the terrorists," Probably the least thoughtful appropriation of Niemöller's speech I've ever seen.
    • switch007 1y ago
      Perhaps you had something constructive to add to the discussion?
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• djoldman 1y ago
  From what research I've seen, the phrasing here should be that non-citizens were deported and chose to bring their US citizen children with them. The children themselves were not deported. This in no way excuses any of the other issues like not allowing contact with legal advocates / attorneys.
  • nessbot 1y ago
    You got a source for that? I've hear otherwise about some of the parent's decisions for their US citizen children.
    • evv555 1y ago
      You got a source for that?
      • rsfern 1y ago
        The habeas petition for VMS (the two year old) indicates the father (who was not detained at the time of the filing) transferred provisional custody rights to a US citizen relative, and that communications with the mother (who was removed along with their US citizen child) were cut off when he tried to share their lawyers contact info PDF: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.lawd.210781/gov.uscourts.lawd.210781.1.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.lawd.21...
    • lostdog 1y ago
      ICE is supposed to keep records, and the courts are supposed to create a transparent record in the case of a dispute. But ICE hid the evidence and prevented the courts from looking into it.
  • afavour 1y ago
    Difficult to describe them as choosing to do anything: > ICE held the families incommunicado, refusing or failing to respond to multiple attempts by attorneys and family members to contact them. In one instance, a mother was granted less than one minute on the phone before the call was abruptly terminated when her spouse tried to provide legal counsel’s phone number. What would they do, leave their child in an ICE facility and hope that somehow word gets back to family to go get them?
• andsoitis 1y ago
  While the 3 minors are US citizens, their parents are not and the parents can be deported because they are in the country illegally. That means you have the following options: a) deport nobody, i.e. you don't apply the law b) deport just the parents. What do you do with the minor children? Separating them from their parents (different countries) would be cruel. c) deport the entire family, including the US minors. Since they have US citizenship, they can always return to the US.
  • miltonlost 1y ago
    DEPORTING US CITIZENS is the logical choice? Logical to deport children to someplace they have never been and they don't have citizenship to? It's still illogical, evil, unconstitutional, and cruel.
    • tomrod 1y ago
      Its post hoc logical, if you want to justify the actions of an autocratic regime and don't have an ethical foot to stand on.
  • otde 1y ago
    Why is a) bad? Have you considered d) pass a different law? Why are you pretending the law is some immutable thing that we always need to follow, regardless of the situations an unjust law might place someone in if followed?
    • samlinnfer 1y ago
      Instead of processing immigration applications fairly for everyone, we just should let people who break the rules get away with it? Having deportation as an actual threat, reduces the amount of people who attempt to break the rules since they know there are consequences.
      • undersuit 1y ago
        What about the threat of jail? Is the US punitive system not effective? In many ways I'd rather be an immigrant than a citizen if the punishment for crimes is deportation rather than detention... as long as I'm not being sent to country that has also suspended their constitutional right to due process.
• laurent_du 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • healsdata 1y ago
    You just advocated for deporting U.S. Citizens without trial simply because they're related to someone who committed a misdemeanor.
  • anikan_vader 1y ago
    Due Process is being denied to US citizens, who are being removed from the country without the opportunity for them or their parents to consult an attorney.
    • bko 1y ago
      From Claude > According to a Migration Policy Institute report, the deportation system dramatically changed over the past 19 years - moving from a judicial system prior to 1996 where most people facing deportation had immigration court hearings, to a system during Obama's administration where 75 percent of people removed did not see a judge before being deported. You have to understand that most what you read about online about this administration is not written in good faith and reported honestly. Everything is unprecedented and a constitutional crisis. Really unforgivable when basic questions in an LLM can provide you meaningful context https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/speed-over-fairness-deportation-under-obama https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/speed-over-fairn...
      • preommr 1y ago
        Can I point out that this administration has gone out of it's way to flaunt it's disregard for the law and constitutional norms? Is anyone buying that the US can't pressure El Salvador to get back someone it wants? Anyone in doubt that it's a backroom deal in defiance of due process? There's a reason why trust in the ruling administration is so important, because otherwise the system breaks down. Any time any questions pop up about how the law is being violated, Tom Homan breaks down crying about how the real crime is how children are baking to death in the heat of the sun, that children are being raped by cartel members... like what do you even say to that? Its easy to see why people are able to commit acts of great cruelty if they've convinced themselves that it's a neccesary evil for the greater good. And it is unprecedented for modern times and it is a constitutional crisis on an almost daily basis.
• commiepatrol 1y ago
  [flagged]
• chris_wot 1y ago
  So this is what America voted for.
• beloch 1y ago
  Let's do a time warp. It's 2018. Children are being separated from their parents and kept in cages[1]. It's really important to notice that the pictures in this article are not from reporters, leaks or anything of the sort. They were released by Customs and Border Protection and, no doubt, make things look better than they were. What has changed since Trump's first term? Yes, there is now a stronger sensitivity to separating children from their parents, among the public at least. One solution is to simply deport child citizens along with non-citizen parents and claim it was by choice. What solutions are we not seeing in the media though? How many photos are being published about conditions in ICE facilities, Guantanamo bay, etc.? What's going on that we just don't know about this time? If some judge ordered the release of photos of current conditions in ICE facilities, they'd be ignored or even charged with some made-up crime. I see a lot of people here trying to reason this away, but it's going to be worse than last time and, eventually, the truth will get out. I know it's tough to care about this while Trump is simultaneously tanking the stock market, waging trade wars, threatening multiple countries with invasion or annexation, etc.. That is by design. Even Americans who cannot spare any sympathy for immigrants need to make the time to care about how their government is treating American children. [1]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44518942 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44518942
  • AustinDev 1y ago
    Let's do another time warp. It's 2000, Bill Clinton is about to wrap up his second term and has deported more people in that term than any president ever at nearly 7,000,000 deportations. Trump barely had 2,000,000 deportations in his first term. Trump's first term was the lowest level of deportations for any administration since Carter. Obama, Reagan, Both Bushes, Clinton and Biden all deported more people every term of their administrations. This has been going on for a long time. I doubt Trump will beat Clinton's 2nd term. I'd be willing to bet on it if anyone wants to take the other side. There is so much lack of context in all these discussions. The 'Maryland Man' that everyone is extremely concerned about was first deported by Obama admin in 2009. Remigration is an ugly business, but it has to happen if you want to live in a sovereign nation under the rule of law.
    • 1y ago
• dghughes 1y ago
  How much do you want to bet legal US citizens deported will still need to file for US taxes since you can never outrun the IRS.
  • diabllicseagull 1y ago
    US tax code do be like that
  • pembrook 1y ago
    Of course they do. The hilarity of the US’s uniquely draconian global taxation system collides with its incomprehensible schizophrenic immigration system. Complexity is the root of all evil.
  • Der_Einzige 1y ago
    [flagged]
• nharada 1y ago
  Feels like this conversation is full of people getting hung up on arguing the technicalities and exact phrasing of this situation. Is that really important to the broader conversation?
  • generalizations 1y ago
    Either the technicalities matter, or our legal system runs on vibes. I think it is important.
    • ridgeguy 1y ago
      Our legal system has always depended on vibes to mitigate technically correct unjust or catastrophic outcomes. It's broadly labelled "prosecutorial discretion", and operates at every level of the justice system. IMHO, it's essential.
      • nickff 1y ago
        Prosecutorial discretion hasn’t meant much to me since the Bond got prosecuted for violating a chemical weapons treaty, and Yates got prosecuted for fish-shredding. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_v._United_States_(2014) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_v._United_States_(2014) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yates_v._United_States_(2015) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yates_v._United_States_(2015...
        • Misdicorl 1y ago
          Sometimes the vibes are wrong, and things go haywire. This is why zero tolerance policies have to be instituted in schools. That doesnt mean the general idea is wrong. Strict adherence to written law will always fail justice. The world is too nuanced and too fractal to handle every edge case well.
          • IIsi50MHz 1y ago
            I seem to recall that zero-tolerance policies caused the expulsion of multiple Boy Scouts who were merely obeying the requirement that they always have a multifunction pocket tool with them (such as a Victorinox knife), and these caused the Scouts to rescind the rule. "Zero tolerance" policies are a generally a tool of the Sith.
• billy99k 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • JackYoustra 1y ago
    give me one such citizen. Just one.
• santoshalper 1y ago
  I think a couple of things are important to remember in a time like this: 1. This behavior, whether legal or not, is profoundly inhumane. 2. No law, statute, or rule requires us to treat anyone inhumanely. The people behaving this way are doing it because they want to. These are not people you want to have access to any power.
• blinky81 1y ago
  I cannot for the life of me understand why Americans have such a problem with other people coming here to seek a better life. Half this country has been tricked into seeing hardworking immigrants as a threat to their safety and livelihood — but by all metrics, immigrants are a net positive to society. I also take issue with the idea that this extreme exclusionary mindset is somehow new to America. A lot of people frame what’s happening as if it’s the first time this country has gone through this. There is a long and storied tradition of otherizing, deporting, and imprisoning. Going back to our very foundation — America was born out of a process of expelling Native people from their lands. Then there’s the Great Migration period and the intense reaction to it, the Palmer raids, FDR’s internment camps, Eisenhower’s deportations, McCarthy era “anti-communism”, mass incarceration as a reaction to the Civil Rights Act, Islamophobia, and now this aggressively right wing anti-immigration sentiment. The people of America, unfortunately, are prone to drastically evil actions when they are tricked by opportunistic political actors into believing their way of life is somehow under attack. This cycle has been going on for a long time.
  • aprilthird2021 1y ago
    > The people of America, unfortunately, are prone to drastically evil actions when they are tricked by opportunistic political actors into believing their way of life is somehow under attack. All people are like this. When the economic prospects for you look bleak, it's very aggravating to see someone you believe is an outsider is succeeding. We see microcosms of this in the bay area where people blame tech workers for driving the cost of living up and making it hard for regular people. In reality, housing policy has done that, but people get mad seeing new outsiders enjoying the life that has become harder and harder for them to afford.
    • anon7725 1y ago
      > When the economic prospects for you look bleak This is the richest nation on earth with a roughly 4% unemployment rate we’re talking about here.
      • throwaway48476 1y ago
• int0x29 1y ago
  And one child deported without cancer meds. At that point you are just trying to kill people
  • umvi 1y ago
    I don't think it's intentional, but rather collateral damage from trying to do deportations quickly and at the "millions" scale
    • intermerda 1y ago
      It's intentional. The cruelty is the point.
      • Der_Einzige 1y ago
        [flagged]
    • watwut 1y ago
      It is intentional to discourage others and to make people afraid. It is even openly intentional.
    • shadowgovt 1y ago
      The moment people in power to just stop learn of the circumstances and don't stop, it becomes intentional.
• pjmlp 1y ago
  Remember Night of Broken Glass from 1938, eventually it will be too late if there isn't a major stand-up movement.
• righthand 1y ago
  > No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The states are responsible for providing equal protection of the laws to everyone here. The states need to stand up and fight ICE.
  • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > states need to stand up and fight ICE We honestly need a Democrat governor to grow a pair and begin arresting ICE agents unlawfully detaining and kidnapping people. Then let the FBI and Bondi escalate it into a full-blown states' rights issue.
    • Der_Einzige 1y ago
      I’m so tired of how pussy democrats are. The moderate wing is so dominated by corporate money that they’ll never do it and just let American fascism happen. The left in America is ran by geriatrics (Bernie) or unelectable young people (AOC). None of them have the guile to do what you’ve said (or rather to pressure and call for the governors to do that). The left has a pussyfooting problem. The left is beta, and has surrendered the aesthetics of power to the right again and again throught history (and the only times that they keep it they end up becoming as bad or worse than what they are fighting) Basically we are fked.
      • tremon 1y ago
        So... we're blaming everyone except for the people who played (and are playing) an active role in this fascist takeover?
• guywithahat 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • lostdog 1y ago
    You are posting blatant misinformation. The MS-13 tattoos were painted into an existing picture.
    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
      The tattoos don't even matter. The judge said not to deport him and they did it anyway.
  • latexr 1y ago
    > this has nothing to do with startups or tech and doesn’t belong here. The guidelines explicitly say HN is not just for that. It’s right at the top. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > On-Topic: (…) That includes more than hacking and startups.
  • JackYoustra 1y ago
    "How come every time I see a headline like this it's totally wrong?" This isn't wrong. It's documented fact. Three U.S. citizen children (ages 2, 4, and 7) were deported by ICE through the New Orleans field office. A federal judge has already scheduled a hearing about this, citing a "strong suspicion" that a 2-year-old U.S. citizen was deported "with no meaningful process." You're doing exactly what propagandists hope for - spreading doubt about documented human rights abuses without bothering to verify the facts. "Last time the pitch was some illegal immigrant who was covered in MS-13 tattoos wasn't MS-13." If you're referring to a case with photoshopped tattoos, you're literally proving my point! You fell for actual fake news and are now using that to dismiss real, verified reporting from multiple sources including federal court records. "I wouldn't be surprised if in a few days we learn neither of their parents are citizens and they're foreign nationals." You've already decided what "truth" you want to emerge. Meanwhile, one of these American children has cancer and was deported without their medication despite ICE being notified of their urgent medical needs. Your cynicism isn't wisdom, it's complicity. You're pre-emptively discrediting reports of government abuses against literal American children because acknowledging them might force you to confront uncomfortable truths about a system you apparently want to defend at all costs. These aren't anonymous claims! They're documented cases with legal representation, court filings, and federal judicial review already underway. What would it take for you to actually care about American citizens losing their rights?
• stefap2 1y ago
  Six months ago I would have endorsed wide-scale deportations, but after seeing the consequences—families swept into jails, plain-clothes officers ambushing people on their way to work or school, and communities living in constant fear—it’s clear that indiscriminate removals are neither practical nor just. This approach diverts resources from pursuing violent offenders, erodes faith in the rule of law, and forces the whole country toward a “papers-please” surveillance culture, where everyone must carry ever-stricter IDs. Watching longtime neighbors dragged off for minor infractions, the policy feels capricious, and that perception of unfairness only accelerates the broader corrosion of civil liberties. A sound path must still secure the border, yet focus enforcement on genuine threats and offer law-abiding residents a transparent route to legal status, so safety is preserved without sacrificing the freedoms.
  • mtVessel 1y ago
    Serious question: how did you envision "wide-scale deportations" playing out, prior to these events?
    • selimthegrim 1y ago
      I’m sure they thought it was like the Boondocks Catcher Freeman master’s version of slavery where they were all in the fields playing games and hanging out with pre-packed picnic baskets, waiting for the expedition
    • chrisulloa 1y ago
      seriously can't believe anyone thought it would happen any other way
    • eschaton 1y ago
      Exactly—plenty of people said exactly what would happen. Why did you not believe them? Will you believe them in the future?
      • slg 1y ago
        >Will you believe them in the future? An underdiscussed frustrating aspect of this whole era is that there is never any true retrospection. There is no adjustment in the credibility of the people who predicted exactly how things would play out or the people whose predictions ended up being incredibly wrong. If there is a lack of consequence for being wrong, it ends up meaning there won't be any consequences for maliciously lying in the moment knowing it's only a matter of time until they are proven wrong because when that day comes, they have already moved onto some other lie and the cycle continues.
• selimthegrim 1y ago
  See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43806201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43806201
• lazyeye 1y ago
  [flagged]
• DonHopkins 1y ago
  [flagged]
• anonfordays 1y ago
  This ended up being fake news: Justice Department attorneys argued that it was in the child's best interest to remain in her mother's legal custody and suggested the child could return, writing, "V.M.L. is not prohibited from entering the United States." Trump administration officials told the court that the mother had informed ICE agents that she wanted to bring V.M.L. with her to Honduras, providing a handwritten note in Spanish that they said confirmed her wishes. https://www.newsweek.com/trump-administration-deport-us-children-2064896 https://www.newsweek.com/trump-administration-deport-us-chil...
• Slava_Propanei 1y ago
  [dead]