The father of a Louisiana-born two-year-old deported to Honduras has dismissed a legal challenge against the Trump administration, citing "the traumatizing experiences the families have been through" since the young girl was deported with her mother and older sister last month.
Family members "are taking a step back to have full discussions about all their options, the safety and well-being of their children, and the best ways to proceed so the harms they have suffered can be fully addressed," said Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the National Immigration Project, whose attorneys represented the father in a complaint filed April 24 in federal court in the state's Western District.
The case had become a flashpoint over Trump's sweeping second-term immigration agenda, highlighting how the administration is ensnaring people who may not be subject to deportation without a formal legal process.
The administration has flown hundreds of Venezuelan men to a notorious prison in El Salvador under an agreement with that country's president, alleging that they were members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang.
That operation spurred questions from federal judges about what they have described as a lack of due process the men received prior to their removal, as well as findings that a majority of the men had no documented gang affiliations and lacked criminal records.
The two-year-old girl, identified in court documents as V.M.L., was deported days after attorneys for her father filed their complaint asserting to ICE officials that V.M.L. had been born in Louisiana and was a U.S. citizen.
Deporting a citizen is "illegal and unconstitutional," Judge Terry A. Doughty, a Trump appointee, wrote in a blistering order on April 25, hours after ICE deported the mother and her two daughters.
Doughty ordered a hearing for May 16 at the federal courthouse in Monroe "in the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process."
ICE agents had detained V.M.L. April 22 in New Orleans along with her mother, Jenny Carolina Lopez Villela, and her 11-year-old sister as they attended a routine check-in at the ICE field office in New Orleans that morning, according to court records. Lopez Villela and V.M.L.'s sister, who were not U.S. citizens, had active deportation orders, according to court records.
The family lives in the Baton Rouge area.
The father's attorneys described speaking with ICE agents on multiple occasions before the girl was deported. Still, federal officials refused to release V.M.L. to a legal custodian, Trish Mack, even after immigration lawyers made the argument to ICE officials that the girl is a U.S. citizen, the attorneys said.
Government attorneys said the little girl's mother “made known to ICE officials that she wanted to retain custody of V.M.L." and that she wished to bring the girl with her to Honduras.
Filings indicate that after being taken to an ICE detention center in Alexandria, the girl, her sister and her mother were put on a plane and flown to Honduras on April 25.
A copy of V.M.L.'s birth certificate included in court filings shows she was born in Baton Rouge in 2023. Her mother and father were born in Santa Bárbara, Honduras, according to court records.
The court filing dismissing the case remained under seal Thursday evening. Shebaya described the dismissal as "voluntary."
"They are voluntarily dismissing this case to give themselves space and time to consider all the options that are available to them," Shebaya said.