CNN reports on a mother whose deportation split up their family: “She had a legal U.S. work permit, no criminal record, paid taxes, never missed an ICE check-in”
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From the September 25, 2025, edition of CNN's The Situation Room
KYUNG LAH (CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT): For more than a month, six-year-old Febe, nine-year-old Angelo, and fourteen-year-old Isaac have been in Galveston, Texas, separated from the only parent they have. ICE arrested and deported their mother to Honduras. The siblings can explain they miss their mother, why it's happened is what they don't understand.
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KYUNG LAH: Febe and Angelo in limbo. They're different from Isaac and their mom. They were born here and are U.S. Citizens. Their mother is Kenia Perez, who raised the kids alone after her husband died during the pandemic. She fled Honduras ten years ago and was detained at the border. She was eventually released. She had a legal U.S. work permit, no criminal record, paid taxes, never missed an ICE check-in. What's happening to citizen children like Febe and Angelo is unfolding across the country. CNN found more than 100 U.S. citizen children, many through public GoFundMe pages, essentially orphaned in recent months because of ICE enforcement. No one is tracking these children, and experts say it's just the beginning. Estimates show nearly 2 million citizen children live in households where both parents are undocumented, vulnerable to ICE's new immigration enforcement. These children met their new reality on June 4th.