A federal judge in Maryland on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from fast-tracking interviews for unaccompanied minors seeking asylum, a practice that critics have said makes children more vulnerable to deportation.
The decision stopped the administration from scheduling asylum interviews for unaccompanied minors with little notice. It also halted a change that made it harder for their lawyers to reschedule interviews, dealing a blow to the administration’s broader effort to overhaul the process for migrant children seeking legal status. Federal officials have cast that work as necessary to clear backlogs and protect children from abuse.
The case was brought by groups providing legal representation to migrant children, who said the federal government used to give them at least 21 days’ notice before an asylum interview. But the groups said they saw a shift last month, when some children were only given notice a few days, or sometimes less than 24 hours, before interviews. The groups argued that the shortened time frame made it harder for children to prepare, hurting their chances of being granted legal status to stay in the country.
Judge Brendan A. Hurson, a Biden appointee, said the change conflicted with the federal government’s mandate to provide special protections for unaccompanied minors, who are seen as particularly vulnerable because they arrived in the United States without their parents or guardians.
“It is difficult to maintain that the public has an interest in the perpetuation of a chaotic system that may result in vulnerable children being wrongfully removed to places where they may suffer abuse, or even death,” Mr. Hurson wrote in his order.
The order will remain in place for at least two weeks. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The ruling affects unaccompanied minors applying for asylum through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security that oversees the legal immigration system. Migrant children who are denied asylum by the agency can still apply for asylum through the immigration courts, although those grants have plummeted under the Trump administration.
The case was brought by a group of nonprofits that represent migrant children in immigration court, including the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, The Door and the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project.
In a joint statement, the plaintiffs and their attorneys applauded the judge’s ruling, and said the federal policy had put children on a “deportation assembly line.”
“This order restores basic procedural protections for immigrant children navigating the asylum process without a parent or caregiver,” the group said.
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