Politics
2 U.S. Citizen Children Were Deported to Honduras With Their Mother, Lawyer Says
A 4-year-old and a 7-year-old with U.S. citizenship were deported alongside their mother to Honduras last week, the family’s lawyer said, adding to the recent string of American citizens caught in the cross hairs of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
The children and their mother were put on a flight to Honduras on Friday, the same day another child with U.S. citizenship, a 2-year-old girl, was sent to that country with her undocumented mother.
Lawyers for both families said the mothers were not given an option to leave their children in the United States before they were deported. In the case of the 2-year-old, whose 11-year-old sibling was also sent to Honduras, a federal judge in Louisiana expressed concern that the administration had deported the American child against the wishes of her father, who remained in the country.
But President Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, denied that any American child was deported. Speaking about the 2-year-old’s case on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Mr. Homan said that federal immigration agents gave her mother a choice of whether to be deported with or without her child, and that she had left the country with her daughter at her discretion.
The children are from two different families who were living in Louisiana. The mother of the 2-year-old is pregnant, and the 4-year-old, a boy, has a rare form of late-stage cancer, the families’ lawyers said. They said the boy had no access to his medications or his doctors while he was in custody with his 7-year-old sister and mother.
The moves come as the Trump administration has ramped up its immigration enforcement and mass deportation efforts. In Florida last week, nearly 800 immigrants were arrested in an operation involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and state law enforcement officials.
Immigration advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union have condemned the administration’s actions, raising concerns of due process.
Gracie Willis, a lawyer with the National Immigration Project who is involved in the 2-year-old’s case, said, “What we saw from ICE over the last several days is horrifying and baffling,” referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But the administration has stood firm. “Having a U.S. citizen child after you enter this country illegally is not a get-out-of-jail free card,” Mr. Homan said.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said on Sunday that it was common for parents who face deportation to want to be removed with their children, noting that the mother of the 2-year-old had made that choice.
“We take our responsibility to protect children seriously and will continue to work with federal law enforcement to ensure that children are safe and protected,” Ms. McLaughlin said.
Both families were detained earlier last week during routine check-ins with ICE. They were in the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, a probationary program that allows people undergoing immigration proceedings to stay in the country.
The 2-year-old and her mother, along with an 11-year-old sibling who is not an American citizen, were detained April 22. The family with the 4-year-old and 7-year-old was detained Thursday morning, said Erin Hebert, their lawyer.
When they were detained, the families were taken hours away from New Orleans, the site of their appointments, their lawyers said, adding that they were prohibited from communicating with other family members or their lawyers. Lawyers for both families said that they were not able to reach the mothers until after they had arrived in Honduras.
Ms. Hebert said she had attended the appointment with the family she is representing, but the family was quickly taken into custody before she could speak with them. She said that she and her team plan to challenge the family’s deportation but are still evaluating their next steps.
In a brief order issued on Friday from Federal District Court in the Western District of Louisiana, Judge Terry A. Doughty asked why the administration had sent the 2-year-old — identified in court records only as V.M.L. — to Honduras with her mother even though her father had sought, through an emergency petition on Thursday, to stop her from being sent abroad.
Judge Doughty, a Trump appointee, said that he had a “strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process,” and set a hearing for May 16 to explore the issue.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Ms. Hebert said. “There is just no good-faith interpretation for what happened to these children.”
Alan Feuer, Minho Kim, Hamed Aleaziz and Brandon K. Thorp contributed reporting.
Politics
Oversight chair seeks information from OpenAI’s Sam Altman about potential financial conflicts
WASHINGTON — The chair of the House Oversight Committee has sent a letter to OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman requesting information about potential conflicts of interest between Altman’s personal investments and his operation of the company.
The letter, sent Friday, comes amid a high-stakes legal battle currently playing out in an Oakland federal courtroom between onetime partners Altman and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who in 2015 co-founded the AI company best known for creating ChatGPT.
The company was first established solely as a nonprofit corporation and the letter sent to Altman by Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the chair of the Oversight committee, indicates that the committee is “investigating potential conflicts of interest involving capital from nonprofit corporations invested in startups and other for-profit companies.”
Comer has requested by May 22 a briefing from the company official responsible for oversight of potential conflicts involving company officers and directors, including Altman, as well as all documents related to conflict of interest policies and guidance for those executives.
While OpenAI was created as a nonprofit designed to responsibly harness the power of the emerging artificial intelligence technology, the company created a for-profit subsidiary in 2019 and three years later released ChatGPT, which jumpstarted widespread adoption of the technology.
Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, left OpenAI’s board in 2018, one year before the creation of the for-profit arm. He is arguing that Altman and another co-founder, Greg Brockman, betrayed the original mission of the nonprofit organization, driven by their desire to “cash in” on the technology.
Musk added Microsoft, a significant investor in OpenAI, to the lawsuit in 2024. OpenAI is rumored to be gearing up to go public later this year or early next, and was recently valued at $852 billion.
Musk has said that he invested $38 million in the OpenAI nonprofit, but he does not stand to benefit from a potential OpenAI public offering.
He created a rival company, xAI, in 2023 that was later folded into his company SpaceX.
In the lawsuit, Musk is seeking $150 billion in damages, for Altman to be removed from the company and for the company to be fully returned to its nonprofit status.
Musk’s complaint also alleges that Altman engaged in self-dealing by directing OpenAI to pursue deals with companies in which he also held a personal stake, including nuclear fusion power company Helion.
Comer’s letter cites reporting that Altman’s pursuit of a Helion deal, which is still ongoing, would come at a lofty valuation of the power-company, boosting the company’s worth and the value of Altman’s investment.
Altman was briefly forced to step down from leadership of OpenAI in 2023 in part due to concerns about potential conflicts between his personal investments and his operation of the company, but was soon reinstated.
While the company’s board created an audit committee to investigate the potential conflicts of Altman and other officers, the findings were never disclosed.
Comer has requested that Altman turn over all documents and communication related to that audit committee.
Representatives for OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
President Trump revealed a new plan on Monday to bring down gas prices that have soared since he chose to start a war with Iran: He wants to suspend federal gas taxes.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Mr. Trump said in a phone call with a reporter from CBS News on Monday morning. “Yup, we’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time, and when gas goes down, we’ll let it phase back in.” A short while later, he mused more about the plan while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office.
He did not mention that such a move would require congressional approval. Asked when or even if the administration planned to approach lawmakers on Capitol Hill about suspending the tax, a representative for the White House said simply: “We refer you to the president’s comments from earlier today.”
Even if Mr. Trump succeeded in pausing federal gas taxes, prices might come down only a smidgen: federal taxes are a little over 18 cents a gallon for gasoline and about 24 cents a gallon for diesel. Prices are up about 50 percent since the war began.
The president acknowledged in the Oval Office on Monday that the drop would be slight.
“It’s a small percentage,” he said, “but it’s, you know, it’s still money.”
Some of Mr. Trump’s foes mocked the idea as too little, too late. “Yes please do throw the peasants some more bread crumbs,” Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former representative, posted on X.
Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, said he approved of Mr. Trump’s proposal. “Families need help now,” Mr. Kelly wrote. “Let’s get it done.” (Mr. Kelly had first proposed this idea back in March.)
The administration floated a halt to the gas tax — which funds road construction and repairs across the country — on Sunday, when the energy secretary, Chris Wright, proposed it on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He said that “all measures that can be taken to lower the price of at the pump and lower the prices for Americans, this administration is in support of.”
Last month, Mr. Wright admitted that gas prices may remain elevated for months, even as the president promises they’ll plummet any day now. So far, studies have shown that the higher gas prices have hit lower-income Americans the hardest.
“As soon as this is over with Iran,” Mr. Trump said on Monday, “you’re going to see gasoline and oil drop like a rock.”
And yet, how soon is soon? He used that same meeting to shred the Iranians’ latest counterproposal as a “piece of garbage,” and said that the cease-fire was on “life support.” He insisted that Iran was in the grips of a powerful faction of “lunatics” who wanted to fight on for as long as possible.
In 2022, President Biden proposed this same idea to bring gas prices down. It never happened. Congress balked. Republicans slammed the idea as gimmicky and bad policy.
Politics
Left-wing governor ripped for ‘insane’ answer on whether he’d support minor son’s gender transition
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Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is facing social media backlash after saying during an interview he would support his underage son if he wanted to transition his gender identity.
“Maryland Governor Wes Moore says he would let his son go through gender mutilation as a minor if he wanted to,” RNC Research posted to X on May 7, accompanied by footage of the clip.
Moore, a prominent Democratic governor who has repeatedly clashed with Trump, has signed measures positioning Maryland as a haven for transgender rights and gender-transition care. He was asked a hypothetical question regarding his own son during a discussion on a podcast with American businessman Patrick Bet-David last week.
“Your son comes in saying he wants to transition, what do you do,” Bet-David asked Moore on his “PBD Podcast.”
HOSPITALS WARNED THEY MUST PROTECT CHILDREN FROM CHEMICAL AND SURGICAL MUTILATION: HHS AGENCY MEMO
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore says he would support his son’s gender transition as a minor. (Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“If this is a journey that he wants to go down, um I want him to always be comfortable in his own skin,” Moore responded, saying his son would always have his “undying love.”
Bet-David pressed Moore on the question, asking whether he would still support his son if he were a minor. Moore said he would.
“I want him to feel safe in his own skin, safe in his own decision-making, but also know that, at 14 years old, I want to be involved inside of that process as well,” said Moore. “I’m not going to condemn him nor castigate him, I’m not going to kick him out of the house. I’m not going to do anything that’s going to hurt him, but I just want to make sure that I’m involved.”
However, Moore — a father of two children under 18 — said it would be “deeply unfair” to allow a child to go on puberty blockers, indicating he would not permit his own son to do so.
Social media commenters unleashed on Moore for appearing to support minors making life-altering decisions.
“That’s not empathy. That’s insanity. As a parent, you are called to guide your children toward the right decisions, not to affirm life-altering destructive ones. This speaks to Gov Wes Moore sacrificing his own child on the altar of woke transgenderism,” wrote Maryland Freedom Caucus vice chair Kathy Szelgia on X.
PARENTS MUST STAY ALERT AS PUBLIC SCHOOLS HIDE LIFE-ALTERING DECISIONS FROM FAMILIES
“I want him to feel safe in his own skin, safe in his own decision making, but also know that, at 14 years old, I want to be involved inside of that process as well,” said Moore. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
“There is a 0% chance he believes this. But this is how insane the Democrat party is,” said Outkick founder Clay Travis.
“This is the man trusted to run Maryland. Just thought you should know where he stands,” write the account Blue Lives Matter.
“INSANE: Maryland Governor Wes Moore says he would let his 12-year-old son go through gender mutilation as a minor if he wanted to,” conservative commentator Steve Guest posted in response.
“A child who can’t smoke, buy alcohol, vote and whose frontal lobe doesn’t fully develop till their mid 20’s is suddenly capable of rationally electing to permanently mutilate their body for the rest of their life,” wrote an X user. “Wes Moore has no business being an elected official.”
DETRANSITIONER CHLOE COLE SHARES COMPLICATIONS AFTER GENDER PROCEDURES: ‘I AM GRIEVING’
The Trump administration has pushed policies to protect children from “chemical and surgical mutilation.” (iStock)
“Good to know that you wouldn’t kick him out of the house, disown him, or hurt him. Next Question: Would the administration of puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones be hurting him,” asked another user.
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The administration has taken a very strong stance against gender mutilation and puberty blockers following an executive order last year.
In December, the Department of Health and Human Services rolled out a series of policy updates and regulatory actions that would effectively defund hospitals that provide gender transition procedures,
Fox News Digital reached out to the Office of Governor Wes Moore and the White House for comment.
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