Official State Department photo by Freddie Everett
A Washington Post (WaPo) story published Saturday that headlined the claim that three US citizen children had been deported is “misleading,” asserted Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday.
“Three U.S. citizens, ages 2, 4 and 7, swiftly deported from Louisiana,” the WaPo headline read, adding in a subheading: “The cases have renewed concerns that the Trump administration’s expedited deportations are violating the rights of both citizens and noncitizens.”
“That’s a misleading headline,” Rubio countered as he appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where hostess Kristen Welker asked the secretary if all on US soil are entitled to “due process.”
“Three US citizens, ages four, seven, and two were not deported,” the secretary said. “Their mothers, who were illegally in this country, were deported. The children went with their mothers. Those children are US citizens. They can come back into the United States if there’s – their father or someone here who wants to assume them. But, ultimately, who was deported was their mother, their mothers who were here illegally. The children just went with their mothers.”
“But it wasn’t like – you guys make it sound like ICE agents kicked down the door and grabbed the two-year-old and threw them on an airplane,” Rubio challenged Welker on the misrepresentation of the actual situation. “That’s misleading. That’s just not true.”
Welker responded she wanted to move on – but nevertheless attempted to press Rubio further on the WaPo claim.
“Just to be clear, because I do want to get to the overhaul at the State Department, is it the US policy to deport children, even US citizens, with their families, and I hear what you’re saying, without due process?” she asked, seeming to suggest the secretary had not been “clear.”
“Just be very clear there,” she insisted.
“[A]gain, if someone’s in this country unlawfully, illegally, that person gets deported,” Rubio responded. “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 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.”
Rubio then anticipated for Welker how he expected the establishment media’s headlines would read if the children remained behind in the US.
“Or, you can say yes, you can go, but your child must stay behind, and then your headlines would read, ‘US holding hostage two-year-old, four-year-old, seven-year-old, while mother deported,’” he said.
“So, the mother, the parents, make that choice,” he reiterated. “I imagine those three US citizen children have fathers here in the United States. They can stay with their father. That’s up to their family to decide where the children go. Children go with their parents. Parents decide where their children go. The US deported their mothers who were illegally in America.”
Rubio explained the notion that people entering the US illegally are actually committing an “unlawful” act has been greatly minimized over the past two decades. Instead, people coming into the country illegally have been given “all kinds of rights that can keep you here indefinitely. That’s why we were being flooded at the border.”
Immigration laws “are very specific,” he said, stressing: “If you’re in this country unlawfully, you have no right to be here, and you must be removed. That’s what the law says.”
On April 22, Rubio also launched the State Department’s Substack column in which he explained the reorganization of his department away from one that “stifles creativity, lacks accountability, and occasionally veers into outright hostility to American interests.”
“The American people deserve a State Department willing and able to advance their safety, security, and prosperity around the world, one respectful of their tax dollars and the sacred trust of government service, and one prepared to meet the immense challenges of the 21st Century,” the secretary wrote.