ICE deported 5-year-old U.S. citizen Génesis Gutiérrez Castellanos to Honduras without a hearing or access to counsel

On January 11, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported five-year-old Génesis Ester Gutiérrez Castellanos -- a U.S. citizen born in Austin, Texas in 2020 -- to Honduras alongside her mother, Karen Guadalupe Gutiérrez Castellanos, who was removed under an administrative deportation order issued in 2019, before Génesis was born. Austin police, responding to a domestic-disturbance call at the family's home on January 5, found that Gutiérrez had an active ICE warrant and notified federal agents, who took mother and daughter into custody. Gutiérrez, a pending U-visa applicant as a survivor of domestic violence, said ICE agents dismissed her explanation that Génesis was a U.S. citizen: "I kept telling them 'the girl was born here.' They didn't care, they picked up the child, just put a jumper on her and told me to get into the car with her."

ICE transported the pair roughly 80 miles from Austin to a hotel near San Antonio -- not a licensed detention facility -- and held them there for nearly a week without a hearing before an immigration judge and without access to a lawyer. Gutiérrez said she was not permitted to call her family until three days into the detention and was told not to disclose her location. The Texas-based immigrant-rights group Grassroots Leadership, which first reported the case, said an immigration attorney who attempted to intervene was told by ICE agents that the pair could not be located in the agency's database. Migration Policy Institute analyst Kathleen Bush-Joseph said this "inability to locate people in the system" pattern, which blocks attorneys from reaching detainees, is becoming more common. ICE deported Gutiérrez and Génesis to Honduras on January 11, six days after their detention began.

The Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights said ICE's handling of the case violated the agency's own internal policy by denying Gutiérrez the chance to arrange care for her daughter, and that "secret detentions, rushed deportations, and blocking access to counsel violate due process and endanger children." ICE did not respond to the Guardian's request for comment. Advocates have drawn a parallel to the same-week case of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, detained by ICE in Minneapolis on January 20, 2026 and later ordered released by a federal judge -- Génesis's case is distinct in that she was a U.S. citizen actually removed from the country under a stale order naming her mother, not released after judicial intervention.