NEW ORLEANS — Immigration officers have deported a father residing in Alabama to Laos regardless of a federal court docket order blocking his removing from the U.S. on the grounds he has a declare to citizenship, the person’s attorneys mentioned Tuesday.

U.S. District Decide Shelly Dick final week ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to maintain Chanthila “Shawn” Souvannarath, 44, in the US whereas he offered what the choose known as his “substantial declare of U.S. citizenship,” court docket information present. He was born in a refugee camp in Thailand however was granted lawful everlasting residence within the U.S. earlier than his first birthday, in accordance with court docket filings.

However Souvannarath on Sunday messaged his spouse on WhatsApp and informed her he was in Dongmakkhai, Laos, in accordance with a screenshot she shared with The Related Press. The message ends with “love y’all.”

“It is rather unlucky, particularly for the kids that now we have collectively,” Beatrice Souvannarath informed AP.

Emails, telephone calls and textual content messages despatched to ICE and the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety weren’t instantly returned.

The ACLU of Louisiana, which is representing Souvannarath, known as the deportation a “beautiful violation of a federal court docket order.” Earlier than his deportation, Souvannarath had been detained at a newly opened ICE facility on the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

“ICE simply ignored a federal court docket order and tore one more household aside,” mentioned Alanah Odoms, government director for the ACLU of Louisiana, in an announcement. “This administration has proven it would ignore the courts, ignore the Structure and ignore the regulation to pursue its mass deportation agenda, even when it means destroying the lives of Americans.”

The deportation comes as Trump administration officers have repeatedly clashed with the courts over their makes an attempt to deport massive numbers of immigrants. There have been earlier circumstances of U.S. residents being deported, together with U.S.-born youngsters.

Chanthila Souvannarath was taken into ICE custody in June following an annual check-in with immigration authorities in Alabama, the place he had been residing, his spouse mentioned.

“When he went to verify in, they detained him. And our two youthful youngsters have been with him,” Beatrice Souvannarath informed AP. “It was the toughest two months of my life.”

He spent a lot of his childhood residing with one or each of his mother and father in Hawaii, Washington state and California. His father, a local of Laos, is a naturalized U.S. citizen, and Souvannarath claims his citizenship derives from that standing.

“I constantly lived in the US since infancy,” Souvannarath wrote in a letter from immigration detention, “and I’ve all the time thought of myself an American citizen.”

Souvannarath filed an emergency movement looking for to delay his deportation. Dick, the federal choose primarily based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, issued a brief restraining order Thursday, citing the “irreparable hurt that will be brought on by speedy deportation.”

“Although the federal government has an curiosity within the enforcement of its immigration legal guidelines, the potential removing of a U.S. citizen weighs closely towards the general public curiosity,” wrote Dick, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Barack Obama. Souvannarath can be “unable to successfully litigate his case from Laos,” she added.

The court docket docket reveals no adjustments in Souvannarath’s case because the choose issued the momentary restraining order, which was set to run out Nov. 6. Dick declined to by way of her workplace to remark.

__ Mustian reported from New York.