The country legally. And you know you're here legally and you choose to have your child that's on you, that's not on this administration. If you choose to put your family in that position, that's on them. But having a U.S. Citizen child after you enter this country legally is not a get out of jail free card. It doesn't make you immune from our laws. [00:00:17] After Tom Homan denied last month deporting two U.S. Children with their mother back to Honduras, a new report from The Daily Beast reveals another case of U.S. Citizen children being deported. This from The Daily Beast Denise Parra Vargas and her husband Omar, [00:00:33] had just dropped their three children, aged nine, five and four, at school in Austin last Thursday morning when their car was pulled over by Texas state troopers, at least ostensibly because the license plate was expired. To clarify, the Daily Beast report did not state the legal status [00:00:52] of Denise Omar or their oldest child. However, their two youngest children, both boys, are born in the Or. They were born in the United States. When the parents were pulled over again because of simply an expired license plate, the Texas State Troopers turned in the two children to Ice [00:01:10] as suspected undocumented immigrants. The father was sent to an Ice detention center, then deported to to Nuevo Laredo in Mexico, just across the border from Laredo, Texas. The mother was released after being fitted with an electronic monitoring ankle [00:01:27] bracelet by the Ice Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, or Isep. Para Vargas was told to check into the Pflugerville Processing Center, where she'd be eligible for asylum and a work permit. But after she appeared alongside her kids, they all vanished. [00:01:45] According to a spokesperson for Grassroots Leadership, an Austin based criminal justice and immigration advocacy advocacy group. Her understanding was that this was supposed to be a routine appointment. It was not a threat. Grassroots was unable to find where she was [00:02:02] until she called early Wednesday afternoon to say she had been deported to Reynosa. When she called from the other side of the border, she said that she signed a paper, but she wasn't sure exactly what it was. She never had a chance to consult with anybody, any efforts from our end [00:02:19] to be able to advocate for her release, or even for our legal team to be able to work on her release. None of that was possible because we weren't even able to locate her. They were taken from their home without the chance for them to even grab any of their belongings. Like any toys, any clothes, anything that might need, that they might [00:02:37] need for their day to day lives. They don't have any of that, and that's just including the material possessions. There also is the long term psychological damage. Yeah. So I think the psychological damage. I'm so glad that they mentioned that, because a lot of times [00:02:54] whenever we discuss these stories, you think about the legality of it, and it is very easy to overlook the human aspect to these stories. This is a life, a small life, a young life that is being so disrupted in such a way that even if they end up back in the United States, [00:03:09] who's going to take care of them? All these things, right? Their very stability. Right. That bottom tier of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Right. All of that is disrupted and it's going to take a lifetime to overcome. Right? I think people underestimate how damaging these type of situations can be, [00:03:27] how traumatizing they can be to witness. And I've never experienced anything like that. This is just empathy, right? Which I'm told is not a good thing to have these days anymore. But I can't imagine expecting a child to go through something like this and then being like, oh my bad. Well, if it comes to that, right. So everything going on right now, there's so much uncertainty. [00:03:46] People don't know how to plan their lives. People don't know how to live their lives. Right. Something that you thought was just a routine thing. You know, you got to, you know, expired license plate, whatever it was fine. You get it fixed. But next thing you know, your whole family and your whole life is upturned [00:04:02] and you know you're dealing with something that's so topical, but nobody really knows what's going on because it's so unfamiliar. Sharon, let's start with you. What do you make of this? Well, I think that that again, we've heard it said time and time again, cruelty is the point. And when you have basically zero, you really can't have due process. [00:04:21] Not if you want to do things the way the Trump administration wants to do them. I mean, if the federal government wants you, they can get you. There's no need to pile on with the lack of due process even a little bit. It's just no need for this. But that is the point. [00:04:37] That is exactly what they want to do here. And you know, I've seen it happen just in other years. Just being a reporter where, you know, oh, we're having a gun buyback, cash for your guns. And the next thing you know, people show up and they want to turn in a gun and get $100 gift card, and they're arrested because it was really a warrant sweep. [00:04:56] We just didn't feel like going to everyone's home to pick them up. Maybe that's perfectly legal, but that's not. I mean, that's not exactly what's going on here. It's far worse. It's far more invasive. And when you're dealing with American citizens, like two, at least of the children are, it's heartbreaking. [00:05:14] It's gut wrenching. But in order to have empathy, you have to see them as human. And I don't believe you're able to carry out some of this stuff if you believe they're human. Yeah, you have to. You have to completely break from from all of that. [00:05:29] You have to separate yourself emotionally for it from that or that part of you just never existed. All right. What are your thoughts? Was. Oh, just to echo what Sharon was saying about the cruelty being the point, in this case, like, it's explicitly is like we know that Stephen Miller part of the policy is [00:05:48] that they need a certain amount of quote unquote, self deportations. So they have to advertise some of the most cruelest and grotesque, visions for deporting folks that they could possibly come up with [00:06:05] so that people hear about it and either leave on their own or end up not coming at all in the first place. Because we know Obama did plenty of legal deportations on his own. Biden did plenty of legal deportations on his own. [00:06:20] And Trump right now, he's net less deportations than Joe Biden. This guy promised mass deportation. He knows he's not delivering on this. So they have to advertise the most disgusting and ghoulish elements [00:06:35] of their deportation regime. - It's a joke. - It's very sad to see. It's very it's it's scary because it's so it's so unreal. You know, you can't even wrap your head around some of the things that they're coming up with, because what kind of normal person would even think to do most of this stuff, right? [00:06:51] Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.