To mark the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a press release on April 30 titled “100 Days of Fighting Fake News.” At the top of the list, the Trump administration rails against the media for “FALSELY” — in all caps — reporting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been deporting U.S. citizen children. “In both cases,” the release claims, “the mother made the determination to take her children with her back to Honduras.”

Over the past few weeks, as news broke that three U.S. citizen children — aged 2, 4 and 7 — were deported alongside their undocumented mothers, the Trump administration has held fast to this rebuttal. Yet attorneys for the two mothers, who were detained during routine immigration check-ins in New Orleans, Louisiana, say that the families were never given an opportunity to determine their own children’s fate. The lawyers also report that the mothers were denied any contact with their legal representatives and family members before their deportation. One of the children, a 4-year-old boy undergoing treatment for a rare form of Stage 4 cancer, was sent to Honduras without his medications and now lacks access to the doctors managing his care.

“If it was truly a choice situation, then why forbid them from talking to their family members and attorneys?” Sirine Shebaya, the executive director of the National Immigration Project told PBS on April 28. “If this was a transparent situation … then there would have been no reason for immigration authorities to specifically prevent them, despite many outreaches, from being able to talk to........

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