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(NewsNation) — Border czar Tom Homan joined White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt for a Monday morning briefing that touted the administration’s immigration efforts and promised policies were saving “lives every day.”
The pair of Trump officials commented further on the deportations of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and the removal of three American-born children along with their mothers, among other top border topics.
Leavitt said President Donald Trump is set to sign two executive orders Monday — one on law and order, and another on sanctuary cities — ahead of his 100th day in office.
3 US citizen kids removed to keep ‘families together’: Homan
The Trump administration removed three children under the age of 10 — all American-born citizens — alongside their mothers who were in the United States illegally, according to lawyers and advocacy groups.
One of the Honduran-born mothers was deported with two children, a 4 and a 7-year-old, while another case involved a mother and her 2-year-old. The children were detained while accompanying their mothers to appointments with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Homan said that the children’s removal is the administration’s way of “keeping families together.”
“When a parent says, ‘I want my two-year-old baby to go with me,’ we made that happen,” Homan said. “They weren’t deported.”
However, family attorneys have raised questions about whether proper deportation procedures were followed in these cases, particularly because of the speed of the removals.
Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., slammed the move on social media: “This is unlawful, inhumane, and a direct attack on the basic due process rights guaranteed to all people, citizens and non-citizens alike, under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation
Officials doubled down on the administration’s assertion that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man wrongfully deported to El Salvador for allegedly being part of the MS-13 gang, will not be returning to the U.S.
Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, has previously said that he will not return Abrego Garcia, calling the idea of facilitating a return “preposterous” despite a call from the U.S. Supreme Court to do just that.
Illinois Gov. Pritzker acts against El Salvador over Kilmar Abrego Garcia
Abrego Garcia entered the U.S. illegally but has been living in the country with his wife and son under protected legal status since 2019. This means he should not have been deported back to El Salvador because a judge agreed, after hearing his case, that his life was in danger there.
More documents from Homeland Security allege he was detained in 2019 in connection with a murder, but no charges were brought, and Abrego Garcia said he was never implicated.
Homan said he doesn’t accept the term “error” regarding Abrego Garcia’s deportation: “There was an oversight. There was a withholding order. But things have changed — the facts and withholding order has changed.”
Trump designated MS-13 as a foreign terrorist organization in January.
Border Patrol, Mexican government dismantle cartel lookout posts
Leavitt: Border wall construction, CBP One app updates
Leavitt on Monday said that more than 85 miles of “new border barrier” are in the planning and construction stages, while 75 miles of temporary barriers have already been deployed.
She said the administration has “ended the disastrous CBP One app.” In early March, the White House shared a reimagined version of the app that assists immigrants with self-deportation.
NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas, Laura Ingle and Tom Dempsey contributed to this report.
