A lawsuit filed against the Trump administration alleging it deported an illegal immigrant and her 2-year-old U.S. citizen child to Honduras last month without due process is being dropped, lawyers for the child’s family confirmed on Tuesday.
The toddler, identified in court filings only as V.M.L., and her 11-year-old Honduran-born sister were kept with their mother, Jenny Carolina Lopez-Villela, who was arrested during a check-in appointment at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in New Orleans.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Immigration Project filed a lawsuit against their deportations in April, claiming the toddler was held “incommunicado,” with ICE “refusing or failing to respond to multiple attempts by attorneys and family members to contact them.”
They further argued that the family did not have a fair opportunity to decide whether they wanted the children to stay in the United States.
The federal government has denied those claims.
Gracie Willis, one of the family’s lawyers, said on Tuesday that they have decided to dismiss the case to allow for “space and time to consider all the options that are available to them.”
Hellbound and Down 