During an appearance on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio set the record straight on the recent controversy surrounding the deportation of three U.S. citizen children and explained that the narrative being pushed by the media was misleading.
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Kristen Welker opened the segment by citing a Washington Post report claiming that three American citizen children, including a four-year-old battling stage IV cancer, had been deported alongside their mothers without access to medication or legal representation.
“So let me ask you, is everyone on U.S. soil, citizens and non-citizens, entitled to due process?” Welker asked.
Rubio didn’t hesitate. “Yes, of course,” he told her.
But he quickly added context that the media was conveniently ignoring: “In immigration standing, the laws are very specific. 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.”
Rubio went on to highlight a broader problem when he noted, “Somehow over the last 20 years, we’ve completely lost this notion […] that yes, we have immigration laws, but once you come into our country illegally, it triggers all kinds of rights that can keep you here indefinitely.” He credited the Trump administration’s policies for ending the chaos at the border, pointing out that crossings are historically low, not just at the U.S. border but all the way down through Central America.
As for the sensational headlines about “deporting U.S. citizen children,” Rubio said flatly, “That’s a misleading headline, okay?” He explained that the mothers, who were in the country illegally, were deported, and their U.S. citizen children went with them voluntarily.
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“Those children are U.S. citizens. They can come back into the United States if there’s their father or someone here who wants to assume them,” he said. “Ultimately, who was deported was their mothers who were here illegally.”
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Pushing back against the way the situation was being portrayed, Rubio made it clear: “It wasn’t like ICE agents kicked down the door and grabbed the two-year-old and threw him on an airplane. That’s misleading. That’s just not true.”
Welker pressed him again, asking whether it was U.S. policy to deport U.S. citizen children without due process. Rubio firmly reiterated, “No, no, no, no.”
He explained the basic reality: “If someone’s in this country unlawfully, illegally, that person gets deported. If that person has a two-year-old child and says, ‘I want to take my child with me,’ you have two choices. You can say, ‘Yes, of course you can take your child,’ or you can force the child to stay behind.”
Rubio pointed out the hypocrisy, saying if the government forced children to stay behind, “your headlines would read, ‘U.S. holding hostage two-year-old, four-year-old, seven-year-old while mother deported.’” Instead, he emphasized, “Parents decide where their children go.”
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“The U.S. deported their mothers who were illegally in America,” Rubio concluded, cutting through the media noise and bringing the issue back to the facts the press would rather bury.
🚨 .@SecRubio slammed the media for “misleading” reports on children leaving U.S.
“Three U.S. citizens ages 4, 7 and 2 were not deported. Their mothers who were illegally in this country were deported. The children went with their mothers. The children are U.S. citizens, they… pic.twitter.com/4NUvHJPDJD
— Nicole Silverio (@NicoleMSilverio) April 27, 2025
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