Rantz: No, ICE didn’t deport a 4-year-old with cancer, as Rep. Pramila Jayapal claimed
Aug 17, 2025, 5:01 AM
Squad grandmother Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Seattle) blasted out a viral claim on X: “Donald Trump’s ICE just deported a 4-year-old child with cancer. This is not law enforcement. It’s state-sanctioned cruelty.” But that didn’t happen.
U.S. citizens are not subject to deportation; ICE deported the mothers, and the children left with them.
NBC News’ reporting, which Jayapal cites, described three U.S.-citizen children, including a 4-year-old with stage-4 kidney cancer, being sent to Honduras with their deported mothers after ICE arrests in Louisiana. But even in coverage sympathetic to the families, federal officials were explicit: the children themselves were not “deported.” They accompanied their mothers, who had final orders of removal. That’s a crucial distinction Jayapal ignored to score political points.
Pramila Jayapal suddenly supports child separation?
“Rather than separate their families, ICE asked the mothers if they wanted to be removed with their children or if they wanted ICE to place the children with someone safe the parent designates,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said to NBC News. “The parents in this instance made the determination to take their children with them back to Honduras.”
McLaughlin also noted that in the case of “an underlying health issue, ICE makes sure that treatment is available in the country to which the illegal alien is being removed. The implication that ICE would deny a child the medical care they need is flatly FALSE, and it is an insult to the men and women of federal law enforcement.”
Should ICE have abandoned the kids? Jayapal previously decried family separations. Her actual position is that she doesn’t ever want immigration enforcement because she’s an open borders Democrat.
Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3 p.m. – 7 p.m. on Seattle Red on 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason Rantz on X, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.
