Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is pushing back against a Texas Democrats narrative after the deportation of a 5-year-old boy and his father became the latest flashpoint in the lefts ongoing attack on President Trumps immigration enforcement policies.
According to Fox News, Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico seized on the case of Victor Martinez Nieto and his son, Liam Tadeo, who were detained in Austin, Texas, earlier this month while driving to a soccer match and deported on Tuesday. Talarico, who has made the incident central to his criticism of the administrations border agenda, argued that Tadeo, scheduled to begin kindergarten this week, should have been in a classroom rather than in federal custody.
"ICE kidnapped Liam Tadeo on his way to a soccer game with his dad," Talarico wrote on X, escalating his rhetoric against federal authorities. "Liam should be in kindergarten. Instead, our government has thrown him in a prison camp hundreds of miles from home."
Talarico announced that Liam had been deported, continuing to frame the case as evidence of systemic cruelty rather than the consequence of illegal reentry. Looking to set the record straight, Mullin said Talarico "won't tell the American people the full story," stressing that the childs removal occurred at his fathers request.
"ICE does NOT separate families," Mullin wrote, directly countering the Democrats claims. "Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates. In this case, both the father and son were deported together."
Mullin further emphasized that parents bear responsibility for the outcomes of their actions "just as any U.S. citizen parent who breaks the law is when they are arrested." The father and son were held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, and Fox News Digital has reached out to the familys attorney, while records show Martinez Nieto was arrested by immigration officers in November 2025, deported in February, and later chose to reenter the United States illegally, as reported by The Austin American-Statesman.
Login