A federal judge in Louisiana expressed concern on Friday that the Trump administration had deported a 2-year-old US citizen to Honduras “with no meaningful process” and against the wishes of her father.

In a brief order issued from federal district court in the western district of Louisiana, Judge Terry A. Doughty questioned why the administration had sent the child — known in court papers only as VML — to Honduras with her mother even though her father had sought in an emergency petition on Thursday to stop the girl from being sent abroad.

“The government contends that this is all OK because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her,” wrote Judge Doughty, a conservative Trump appointee. “But the court doesn’t know that.”

Asserting that “it is illegal and unconstitutional to deport” a US citizen, Judge Doughty set a hearing for May 16 to explore his “strong suspicion that the government just deported a US citizen with no meaningful process”.

The case of VML, which was reported earlier by Politico, is the latest challenge to the legality of several aspects of President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation efforts.

The administration has already been blocked by seven federal judges in courts across the country from removing Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members to El Salvador under a rarely invoked wartime statute.

According to court papers, the 2-year-old girl had accompanied her mother, Jenny Carolina Lopez Villela, and her older sister, Valeria, to an immigration appointment in New Orleans on Tuesday when they were taken into custody by officials from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

New York Times News Service