Democrats and their media counterparts did their level best on Sunday to convince viewers that President Donald Trump had crossed the line they’ve all been clutching their pearls over for weeks and deported American citizens — minor children, no less. But as Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained, that is not at all what transpired.
For those who don’t spend their Sunday mornings glued to the television — and their Sunday afternoons attempting to dig through a week’s worth of network and cable news media spin — The Daily Wire has compiled a short summary of what you may have missed.
The discussion around illegal immigration — and President Trump’s ambitious mass deportation plan — has been contentious since long before he won reelection in November of 2024. And as his administration began to make good on his promises to deport illegal aliens in large numbers — beginning with those who had committed crimes in addition to crossing the border illegally — poll numbers backed his play as a majority of Americans said they were in favor of all illegal aliens facing deportation.
But opponents of his policies have thrown caution to the wind as they back the illegals instead, taking up the cause of an illegal immigrant member of a transnational gang and defending a judge who has been charged with crimes related to assisting an illegal immigrant in evading capture. When they learned that three children, aged two, four, and seven — who are American citizens — were relocated with their illegal immigrant mother when she was deported, they thought they finally had the narrative that so many had been predicting.
MSNBC host Symone Sanders-Townsend said just a week prior that the deportation of Salvadoran national and MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia was proof that the Trump administration would eventually come for American citizens. She also argued that he would start with communities of color.
Whoopi Goldberg claimed a month earlier on ABC’s “The View” that the Trump administration could come for anyone if they could deport terrorists. “You just gotta keep your eyes open, y’all,” she warned, going on to imply that even American citizens were at risk of deportation. “Because if they can just come up and take somebody because they’ve made a decision that you’re supposed to be that person, any one of us could find ourselves being deported to some country when we’ve never been there.”
By Sunday morning, the narrative was set: Trump’s Department of Homeland Security was deporting minor children who were American citizens.
On CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” host Margaret Brennan blindsided Border Czar Tom Homan, who said he did not know about that specific case, with the story.
“On Friday, there were three American citizen children, born here, who were deported along with their mothers from Louisiana down to Honduras,” Brennan began, noting that one of the three children was a four-year-old who had stage-four cancer and saying that the child had been sent to Honduras without being allowed to first speak with a doctor “and without medication.”
“I understand this child’s mother entered this country illegally, but isn’t there some basis for compassionate consideration here that should have allowed for more consultation or treatment?” Brennan asked.
Homan objected to Brennan’s framing of the question, saying that he was not familiar with the specific case but adding, “No U.S. citizen child was deported.”
“The mother was deported along with the children,” Brennan insisted.
“The children aren’t deported,” Homan said again. “The mother chose to take the children with her.”
“Having a U.S. citizen child after you enter this country illegally is not a get out of jail free card. It doesn’t make you immune from our laws,” he added.
White House “border czar” Tom Homan says he is not aware of the case last week when a mother who had entered the U.S. illegally was deported to Honduras with her 4-year-old child who has stage-four cancer. But he adds: “Having a U.S. citizen child after you enter this country… pic.twitter.com/aEr57Y5Ga2
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) April 27, 2025
“Having a U.S. citizen child doesn’t make you immune from our laws of the country. American families get separated every day by law enforcement,” Homan repeated, saying that the mothers in question had received due process and had chosen to take their children with them when they were removed from the United States.
White House “border czar” Tom Homan says he disagrees with the federal judge who said there was “no meaningful process” behind the deportation of a woman to Honduras with her children, one of whom is a 2-year-old U.S. citizen. He says the woman “had due process” and decided to… pic.twitter.com/WR3wDZ7Ouj
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) April 27, 2025
CNN’s Dana Bash used the same framing on “State of the Union,” posing a question to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer about the “three American citizen children” who “were deported with their families, including one suffering from metastatic cancer.”
Schumer used the opportunity to claim that the Trump administration was violating due process by deporting illegal aliens whose presence in the United States is in itself a violation of the immigration process.
“Due process is a hallmark of what our country is all about, the rule of law, and ICE and Trump seem to break it in every single way. He believes he’s a king. He is not, and the American people are totally against what he is doing in this regard,” Schumer claimed — despite polling data that says the people are, in fact, in favor of mass deportations.
.@SenSchumer responds to reports that the Trump administration deported three US citizen children with their families: “Due process is a hallmark of what our country is all about, the rule of law, and ICE and Trump seem to break it in every single way. He believes he’s a king. He… pic.twitter.com/zYwaMEpyCC
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) April 27, 2025
And on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” host Kristen Welker tried the exact same set-up with Secretary of State Rubio — even after he explained, as Homan had, that it was the illegal alien mothers who were subject to the deportation orders and the children were simply taken with them when they were removed from the country. He noted that for the children, because of their citizenship status, there was no bar for reentry to the United States for them.
Welker pushed back anyway, asking, “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, just to be very clear?”
“No, no, no,” Rubio objected. “No, no, again: if someone’s in the country unlawfully, illegally, that person gets deported. If that person is with a two-year-old child, or has a two-year-old child, and says, ‘I want to take my child with me,’ well then what —? 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.’”
Rubio noted that would create a whole new problem, saying, “And then your headlines would read, ‘U.S. holding hostage two-year-old, four-year-old, seven-year-old, while mother deported.’ The parents make that choice.”
“We have to make a determination about whether this is an endeavor that we want to continue to be involved in,” says @SecRubio on negotiations around Ukraine.
“There are reasons to be optimistic, but there are reasons to be realistic… We’re close, but we’re not close enough.” pic.twitter.com/BtVrodmRUy
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 27, 2025
