A Honduran mother and her two young children — including a six-year-old leukemia patient — attended an immigration court hearing in Los Angeles on May 29, expecting to make their case for asylum in the United States.
Instead, like hundreds of other immigrants who have attended hearings only to have their cases swiftly dismissed, federal agents arrested the family and placed them in removal proceedings. The woman and her two children were sent to an immigration detention center in rural Texas, roughly 1,300 miles from home.
After more than a month in detention, the family was released July 2 following a lawsuit against Donald Trump’s administration, in what is believed to be the first legal challenge against the arrests of children during controversial operations inside courthouses. The woman and her children are identified only by their initials in court documents.
In detention, the children “cried every night,” according to the family’s attorney. The woman’s six-year-old son also experienced bruising and bone pain, both symptoms of leukemia, and missed an appointment related to his cancer treatment. His sister barely ate.
“The Trump administration’s policy of detaining people at courthouses who are doing everything right, who are entirely law-abiding, who are trying to fulfill all the requirements that the U.S. government asks of them — it violates our Constitution, it violates our federal laws,” Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School director Elora Mukherjee told Salon.
“It also violates our sense of morality,” she added. “Why are we targeting hundreds, if not thousands, of people, including children, who are doing everything right?”
Thousands of people who are following immigration law — showing up for court-ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-ins, immigration court hearings and U.S. Customs and Immigration Services appointments — have become easy targets for arrests.
The Trump administration has effectively “de-legalized” tens of thousands of immigrants who were granted humanitarian protections to live and work in the U.S., as well as thousands of people who show up to immigration courts each week only to have their cases dismissed, with federal agents waiting to arrest them on the other side of the courtroom doors.
The administration has directed immigration judges — who, unlike federal district judges, operate under the direction of the Department of Justice — to dismiss cases involving immigrants who have been in the country for less than two years, making it easier for ICE to rapidly remove them.
Those actions have radically expanded a pool of “undocumented” people to add to the president’s demands for mass deportations.
The six-year-old leukemia patient identified as N.M.Z. in court filings “was seen regularly by medical personnel” at the facility, according to Homeland Security deputy secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
He was living in Honduras when he was diagnosed at age 3 with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a blood and bone marrow cancer. It is the most common form of cancer among children.
In a post on X, Homeland Security called allegations of medical neglect “flatly FALSE.”
“ICE ALWAYS prioritizes the health, safety, and well-being of all detainees in its care,” according to the post. “Fortunately, the minor child in question has not undergone chemotherapy in over a year, and has been seen regularly by medical personnel since arriving at the Dilley facility.”
The Honduran family legally entered the country in October 2024 using the Biden-era CBP One app that streamlined a legal process for immigrants to enter the U.S.
After taking office, Trump’s Homeland Security Department shut down the program and began terminating the legal status for tens of thousands of immigrants who used the app to legally enter. The administration began sending notices instructing them to leave the country “immediately.”
Roughly 985,000 people were seeking legal entry into the country before the president abruptly ended the program earlier this year.
A lawsuit, filed in Texas district court, argues that the Honduran family’s arrests violate their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights.
The family’s release “demonstrates the power we have when we fight back against harmful, un-American policies,” according to a statement from attorney Kate Gibson Kumar of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which also represented the family.
“The practice of courthouse arrests is a blatant disregard for those lawfully seeking safety through the government’s own processes, and an even bigger disregard for our Constitution and the protections it provides, including due process,” she said.
The South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley was closed during the Biden administration and re-opened with Trump’s aggressive mass deportation agenda, which is seeking to arrest 3,000 people a day while pumping billions of dollars into expanding capacity in federal detention centers. Nearly 60,000 people are currently being held in those facilities.
The Dilley detention center has come under renewed scrutiny after the Trump administration signalled plans to “terminate” a decades-old policy that sets the standard for humane treatment of immigrant children in government custody.
If the government successfully revokes the rule, children in federal immigration custody will no longer be entitled to basic protections granted under the consent agreement — including adequate food, water, and clean clothes, regardless of whether they're detained with their parents or if they’re alone.
