Five-Year-Old US Citizen Deported to Honduras With Mother
A five-year-old girl born and raised in the United States has been deported to Honduras alongside her mother, uprooting her from familiar surroundings, school, friends, and family. Experts warn that such experiences, especially when children are placed at the centre of adult immigration conflicts, can create lasting psychological scars and disrupt healthy development.
Génesis Ester Gutiérrez Castellanos, a kindergartner from Austin, Texas, was suddenly removed from her home in January 2026 and taken to Honduras with her mother, Karen Gutiérrez, who faced a long-standing deportation order. Génesis, a U.S. citizen, had never lived in Honduras and has no memories or connections there.
For children of five, stability and routine are crucial. Familiar schools, playgrounds, and daily patterns help young children feel safe, learn social skills, and develop emotionally. Being abruptly uprooted can disrupt these foundations, leaving a child struggling with anxiety, confusion, and a profound sense of insecurity. Psychologists say experiences like this — displacement, unfamiliar environments, and exposure to adult conflicts — can affect trust, emotional regulation, and long-term cognitive and social development.
International standards, such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), stress that the best interests of the child must be a primary consideration in all actions affecting them (Article 3). This includes immigration decisions. Children have the right to be protected from mental harm (Articles 6 & 19) and the right to maintain family unity unless separation is clearly necessary for the child’s welfare (Article 9). Génesis’s deportation raises serious questions about whether these protections were observed.
Her mother has said she hopes to reunite Génesis with relatives in the United States in the future, but the immediate trauma of displacement, being removed from a familiar culture, language, peers, and support networks, is profound. Experts warn that such disruptions during critical developmental years can leave emotional and psychological scars that may last a lifetime.
This case underscores that children should never be placed at the centre of adult policy conflicts. International guidelines stress that their rights, safety, and opportunity to grow in a stable environment must always guide decisions affecting their lives. Génesis’s experience is a stark reminder of the consequences when these principles are overlooked: a childhood disrupted, a sense of belonging shaken, and a young mind exposed to preventable trauma.
