Suit: ICE Deported 4-Year-Old American Boy With Cancer

Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem are just two of the defendants in a new complaint that alleges Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported a 4-year-old American boy with late-stage kidney cancer to Honduras. Per the Guardian, the lawsuit filed in Louisiana, which also names various ICE officials as defendants, is on behalf of two moms and their kids deported from the US earlier this year, with three of the latter being US citizens—the boy with cancer, as well as his 7-year-old sister and a 2-year-old girl. Per the complaint, the women were deported with their children after they were told to come to an immigration check-in in April with their kids and passports, reports NBC News.

The parents "were never given a choice as to whether their children should be deported with them and were prohibited from contacting their counsel or having meaningful contact with their families to arrange for the care of their children," notes the suit, which alleges they were denied due process. The mothers say they wanted their kids to remain in the US—and that in the case of Romeo, the child with aggressive kidney cancer, "the failure to allow his mother to arrange for his care ... and his unlawful deportation to Honduras interfered with his needed medical treatment."

"It has been scary and overwhelming," Romeo's mother, named only as Rosario, says in a statement. "After so many years in the United States, it has been devastating to be sent to Honduras." She adds that living there is "incredibly hard," without "the resources to care for my children the way they need." The other mom, "Julia," says when she refused to give the OK for her daughter to go to Honduras with her, an ICE officer threatened her child would be placed in foster care.

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In a statement to NBC News, a Homeland Security rep denies the children were "deported" and that their mothers weren't given other choices. "The parents in this instance made the determination to take their children with them back to Honduras," insists Tricia McLaughlin. She adds that "the implication that ICE would deny a child the medical care they need is flatly FALSE," and that whenever health issues are in the mix, ICE "makes sure that treatment is available in the country" where the individual is being deported to.