Democrats refuse to give up their future voters without a fight. As President Donald Trump pledged on the campaign trail, his administration has made the removal of illegal immigrants a top priority.
In response, the Left has opposed him at every turn. This opposition has placed them in the difficult position of defending the indefensible — most recently, by fighting the deportation of an alleged MS-13 gang member and protesting the arrest of a Wisconsin judge accused of helping an illegal immigrant to evade ICE.
Over the weekend, a new narrative emerged.
According to the Left, the Trump administration has started deporting babies—U.S. citizens—without due process.
The implication is clear: if they can deport U.S. citizens, what protection does anyone truly have?
On Saturday, The Washington Post breathlessly reported, “Three U.S. citizens, ages 2, 4 and 7, swiftly deported from Louisiana.” The article began:
Three U.S. citizen children from two different families were deported with their mothers by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the early hours of Friday morning. One of them is a 4-year-old with Stage 4 cancer who was deported without medication or the ability to contact their doctors, the family’s lawyer said.
It was an extraordinary way to frame the situation. In reality, two illegal immigrants who had given birth to so-called “anchor babies” in the U.S. were deported. They were given the choice to take their children with them or leave them in the care of U.S. citizen relatives. They chose to take their children.
But left-wing cable hosts did not allow the facts to interfere with a new opportunity to attack Trump administration officials on their Sunday morning shows.
Border Czar Tom Homan appeared on the CBS News program Face the Nation. Host Margaret Brennan told Homan, “On Friday, there were three American citizen children, born here, who were deported along with their mothers from Louisiana down to Honduras.”
Brennan cited an “advocate” who claimed that one of the children involved had stage 4 metastatic cancer and was sent back to Honduras without seeing a doctor or receiving medication. She asked Homan, “Isn’t there some basis for compassionate consideration that should have allowed for more consultation or treatment?”
Homan said he was unaware of that specific case but emphasized a key point: “U.S. citizens are not deported. The mother chose to take the children with her.” He added that having a child after entering the country illegally “is not a ‘get out of jail free card.’ It doesn’t make you immune from our laws.” [Emphasis added.]
Brennan brought up a second case involving a woman with a two-year-old child, citing a judge who reportedly said there had been “no meaningful process.” Homan responded that he was familiar with that case and asserted the woman had indeed received due process “at great taxpayer expense.”
Pressed again by Brennan on whether cases involving children should receive special consideration, Homan essentially argued that granting such exceptions would create a powerful incentive for women from around the world to come to the U.S. to exploit the system.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio faced a similar line of attack from NBC News host Kristen Welker on Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press. She also brought up the child with cancer and the two-year-old who allegedly did not receive “due process.”
“It’s raising concerns about the issue of due process — that it’s being violated,” Welker said.
She then asked, “Is everyone on U.S. soil, citizens and non-citizens, entitled to due process?”
Rubio called the Post’s headline “misleading” and explained as Homan had earlier, that the mothers were deported and opted to take their children with them.
“If those children are U.S. citizens, they can come back into the U.S. if their father or someone else wants to assume them. But ultimately who was deported were their mothers, who were here illegally. The children just went with their mothers,” he said.
He continued, “You guys make it sound like ICE agents kicked down the door and grabbed the 2-year-old and threw him on an airplane. That’s misleading. That’s just not true.”
Welker reframed her question: “Is it the U.S. policy to deport children, even U.S. citizens with their families, and I hear what you’re saying, without due process?”
Rubio replied: “No, no, no. Again, if someone is in this country unlawfully, illegally, that person gets deported. If that person is with a two-year-old child and says I want to take my child with me, you have two choices. You can say, yes, of course you can take your child whether they’re a citizen or not, because it’s your child. Or you can say, yes you can go, but your child must stay behind.
“And then your headlines would read ‘U.S. holding hostage – two-year-old, four-year-old, seven-year-old – while mother deported.'”
In their eagerness to manufacture yet another controversy targeting the Trump administration, Brennan, Welker, and the writers at The Washington Post undermine their own credibility. Their effort to launch a new, unfounded narrative reveals a troubling lack of substance from Democratic Party leadership. Deception has become their currency—disseminating distortions in the hope that repetition will substitute for truth. One has to wonder: is this what a political party looks like when it’s on the verge of irrelevance or implosion?
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn or X.
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