(LOUISIANA, USA) A 44-year-old man who has lived in the United States since infancy was deported to Laos a day after a federal judge in Louisiana blocked his removal, in a case that has ignited outrage among civil rights lawyers and sharpened questions about how U.S. immigration authorities handle potential claims to citizenship. Chanthila Souvannarath was flown out on October 24, 2025, less than 24 hours after Chief Judge Shelly D. Dick of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana issued an order prohibiting his deportation because of what she called his “substantial claim to U.S. citizenship.”
Judge Dick’s order, issued on October 23, 2025, described the risk of harming a person who may be a citizen if deported and highlighted the strength of Souvannarath’s legal arguments.
“He lays out the legal framework for his derivation of citizenship through his naturalized father and demonstrates how each prong of the requirements was met. This presents serious questions regarding the legality of his detention and imminent deportation,” she wrote.
She further cited “irreparable harm” and the “inherent and obvious harm in deporting a U.S. citizen.”
The Department of Homeland Security says the restraining order reached Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after Souvannarath had already been placed on a plane. In a statement, Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security assistant secretary, rejected the suggestion that officials had made an error.
“There was no mistake,” she said, describing Souvannarath as a “criminal illegal alien” who “had no right to be in this country.”
McLaughlin added: “20 years later, he tried a Hail Mary attempt to remain in our country by claiming he was a U.S. citizen. I know it’s shocking to the media—but criminal illegal aliens lie all the time.”
The deportation has fueled a tense standoff between Homeland Security officials, who insist the removal was lawful, and civil rights advocates, who say ICE defied a federal court order and tore apart an American family. Nora Ahmed, legal director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said:
“This should shock the nation. The deportation of an individual with a substantial claim to U.S. citizenship represents a catastrophic failure of the immigration system and a flagrant violation of constitutional rights.”
Alanah Odoms, executive director for the ACLU of Louisiana, said:
“ICE just ignored a federal court order and tore yet another family apart. This administration has shown it will ignore the courts, ignore the Constitution and ignore the law to pursue its mass deportation agenda, even if it means destroying the lives of American citizens.”
Souvannarath, who was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and brought to the United States before his first birthday, had lived for decades in Hawaii and Alabama. He gained lawful permanent residence as a child. His citizenship claim rests on a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act, known at the time as § 321(a), under which a child could derive U.S. citizenship through a parent’s naturalization when that parent had sole custody. According to court filings, his father became a U.S. citizen and held sole custody, and those facts, together with his lawful permanent resident status as a minor, form the basis of his argument that he is a citizen by operation of law. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services maintains guidance on derivative citizenship through parents, including historic provisions that governed before the Child Citizenship Act took effect, on its official site; see USCIS guidance on citizenship through parents.
His path through the criminal justice system and into ICE custody began years earlier. In 2004, court records show he was convicted in King County, Washington, of assault and unlawful possession of a firearm. After serving his sentence, he remained in the United States and continued raising a family. On June 18, 2025, during what his family believed would be a routine check-in with immigration authorities in Alabama, ICE officers arrested him and transported him to Camp 57, the detention facility ICE operates inside the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. His wife, Beatrice, said the arrest unfolded in front of their children.
“When he went to check in, they detained him. And our two younger kids were with him. It was the hardest two months of my life,” she said.
From detention, without a lawyer, Souvannarath filed a habeas petition pro se in federal court. He asked for recognition of his citizenship and release from custody, saying his detention and threatened deportation were unlawful because he was, in fact, a U.S. citizen under the statute in effect when he was a child. It was in response to this petition that Judge Dick issued the temporary restraining order halting any removal, writing that his filings established a framework for derivative citizenship and raised “serious questions” about ICE’s legal authority to continue detention or carry out deportation.
The next day, he was gone. DHS says the court’s order was not served on ICE until after the plane had already departed. Civil rights groups counter that ICE has an independent obligation to respect federal court orders, and that once notified, the agency should have taken steps to reverse the removal or bring him back. Bridget Pranzatelli, a staff attorney at the National Immigration Project, said:
“Federal agencies cannot simply ignore the other branches of government. ICE—like every other federal and state enforcement agency—is bound by the orders of the court. We call for the immediate return of Mr. Souvannarath and for ICE to be held accountable for his flagrantly illegal removal.”
What happened over those two days has become a flashpoint for advocates who say the system still fails to protect people with strong claims to U.S. citizenship. In their view, the fact that a federal judge had already flagged “irreparable harm” if the deportation went ahead underscores how easily a person who may be a citizen can be expelled when timelines are tight and communication breaks down. The central legal dispute now is not only whether Souvannarath is a citizen by law, but also whether ICE violated a binding court order. The agency’s defenders say the sequence of events—especially the serving of the order after takeoff, as DHS asserts—explains why the removal proceeded. Critics argue that the order’s intent was plain and that the government should have immediately acted to reverse the deportation once the court’s directive was known.
The human consequences are clear for the family in Alabama. Beatrice Souvannarath described the arrest and the weeks that followed as a wrenching period that their children witnessed and felt. Her husband’s sudden deportation to Laos, a country he had never called home and where he arrived at age 44 after a lifetime in the United States, has left her with few answers about what comes next. The family’s attorneys say the case shows how the lack of guaranteed lawyers in immigration detention can leave people to argue complicated legal questions alone, even when the stakes include potential removal to a country they left as infants or never knew at all.
For the ACLU of Louisiana and allied groups, including RFK Human Rights and the National Immigration Project, the next step is to try to unwind what happened and force the government to bring Souvannarath back while the courts decide his citizenship claim.
“This should shock the nation,” Ahmed said, calling the case a test of whether court orders carry the weight they are supposed to when immigration enforcement moves quickly.
Odoms framed the episode as part of a broader pattern, saying the administration would “ignore the courts, ignore the Constitution and ignore the law” to press a “mass deportation agenda.”
The government’s response has focused on Souvannarath’s criminal record and its view that his claim emerged only when deportation loomed. McLaughlin’s statement emphasized the 2004 convictions and cast doubt on his filings.
“There was no mistake,” she said, asserting he “had no right to be in this country.”
In a separate line that stoked anger among advocates, she said: “20 years later, he tried a Hail Mary attempt to remain in our country by claiming he was a U.S. citizen. I know it’s shocking to the media—but criminal illegal aliens lie all the time.” Those comments hardened divisions over whether immigration enforcement is respecting the boundaries the courts set and what obligations the government has when a judge flags a “substantial claim to U.S. citizenship.”
At the center of the legal dispute is the now-superseded INA § 321(a), which governed derivative citizenship for certain children before changes in 2001. Under that provision, a child could automatically become a citizen when a parent naturalized and met specific custody and residency conditions. In her order, Judge Dick said Souvannarath’s pro se filings addressed those conditions point by point.
“He lays out the legal framework for his derivation of citizenship through his naturalized father and demonstrates how each prong of the requirements was met,” she wrote, indicating that the case appeared to meet the threshold to pause any removal until the court could assess the merits.
The setting for much of this drama was Camp 57, the ICE detention site within the sprawling Louisiana State Penitentiary—known commonly as Angola. The facility has become a hub for immigration detention in the region. After ICE arrested Souvannarath at his Alabama check-in on June 18, 2025, he was transferred to Angola, where he remained for just over four months. During that time, despite having lived in the United States since he was a baby, he prepared his court filings himself, arguing that his father’s naturalization and sole custody made him a citizen and that ICE lacked authority to detain him or carry out a deportation.
The speed of the removal after the court’s order has alarmed immigration lawyers who see broader risks for people with unresolved, credible citizenship claims. They note that even a short gap in communication—if DHS’s account about service of the order is correct—can have irreversible consequences. Advocates say this case underscores how the deportation machinery can outpace the courts, moving faster than legal protections can be applied, particularly for detainees without lawyers. For families like the Souvannaraths, the result is separation that may be hard to undo even if a court later concludes a deportation should never have happened.
Legal efforts to challenge ICE’s actions are underway. The ACLU of Louisiana, RFK Human Rights, and the National Immigration Project said they are examining possible paths to force the government to return Souvannarath to the United States while the court considers his citizenship claim. Pranzatelli called for accountability measures to ensure that federal agencies adhere to judicial orders in future cases.
“ICE—like every other federal and state enforcement agency—is bound by the orders of the court,” she said, adding that the groups want “the immediate return of Mr. Souvannarath” and consequences for what they describe as a “flagrantly illegal removal.”
For now, the family is left with uncertainty and distance. Beatrice’s account of the Alabama check-in—“When he went to check in, they detained him. And our two younger kids were with him. It was the hardest two months of my life”—captures the shock that followed. The judge’s choice of words, meanwhile, points to the stakes for the legal system: “irreparable harm” if a person with a credible citizenship claim is removed, and the “inherent and obvious harm in deporting a U.S. citizen.” Those phrases will likely reverberate through the litigation that continues in Louisiana federal court.
The case lands at a moment when questions about wrongful deportations of U.S. citizens remain unresolved. Past audits and court cases have shown that citizens can be caught in enforcement actions, especially when citizenship turns on complex family histories, old statutes, or incomplete records. Souvannarath’s path—from a refugee camp in Thailand to Hawaii and Alabama, from lawful permanent residency in childhood to a claim of citizenship through his father—illustrates how a person’s status can hinge on events decades ago. For him and his family, the events of October 23, 2025 and October 24, 2025 have become the pivot point.
Whether the government will be ordered to return him while the court reviews his citizenship claim is the question that now hangs over the case. The judge’s order was clear in pausing removal while those issues were considered. What happened next—an overnight deportation to Laos—has set off a broader debate about how quickly deportations should proceed when a federal court has already signaled that a person may in fact be a U.S. citizen. For Chanthila Souvannarath, the outcome of that debate will decide whether he has a path back to the country he has called home since he was a baby, and whether his citizenship claim is resolved before, not after, an irreversible deportation.
This Article in a Nutshell
Chanthila Souvannarath, who lived in the U.S. since infancy, was deported to Laos on October 24, 2025, less than 24 hours after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order noting his substantial derivative citizenship claim under former INA §321(a). DHS says the TRO reached ICE after the plane departed; civil-rights groups contend ICE violated a court order and seek his return. The case spotlights coordination failures, risks for unrepresented detainees, and disputes about enforcement versus judicial safeguards.
