WASHINGTON — A US federal judge on Sunday halted the Trump administration from deporting a group of migrant Guatemalan children already boarded onto planes and potentially hundreds more in government shelters after their lawyers made a pre-dawn emergency appeal.
The dramatic scene was reminiscent of other last-minute court challenges to Trump-era deportation efforts.
A little after 1 a.m. ET on Sunday, the National Immigration Law Center, a pro-immigrant advocacy group, filed an emergency motion with the US District Court in Washington, D.C. to halt the removal of 10 unaccompanied migrant children from Guatemala.
At a rare hearing over a holiday weekend, District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan said she had been awakened at 2:35 a.m. and alerted to the case. Sooknanan issued a temporary restraining order halting removal of the children, ages 10-17, for 14 days.
Sooknanan expanded the order to include any Guatemalan unaccompanied minors in the custody of the US Department of Health and Human Services. The complaint said this group could number hundreds of children.
A government lawyer confirmed Sunday evening that the children that it had planned to fly to Guatemala had been taken off the airplanes and were being returned to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
President Donald Trump, a Republican, launched an immigration crackdown after returning to the White House in January, including an effort to track down and deport unaccompanied migrant children.
His administration struck an agreement with Guatemala that would allow unaccompanied children to be sent back to the country and planned to start deportations this weekend, one current and two former US officials told Reuters. The plans were first reported, opens new tab by CNN on Friday.
Migrant children who arrive at US borders without a parent or guardian are classified as unaccompanied and sent to federal government-run shelters until they can be placed with a family member or foster home, a process outlined in federal law.
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo said in July that his government was working with the US to repatriate unaccompanied children.
During the emergency hearing on Sunday, Sooknanan pressed the Department of Justice for assurances that Guatemalan children had not been deported already.
“We’re here to try to figure out as quickly as we can what is happening,” said Sooknanan, an appointee of Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.
Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign said no children had been removed but that some had been loaded onto planes. Ensign said he believed one plane may have taken off but later returned under the judge’s order.
An attorney with the National Immigration Law Center, Efren Olivares, told the judge that some children still appeared to be aboard planes in Harlingen and El Paso, Texas. Ensign said they would be moved back to HHS shelters.
Ensign said all of the children’s parents or guardians in Guatemala had requested their return via the Guatemalan government, although Olivares contested that.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller criticized Sooknanan for blocking the deportations.
“The minors have all self-reported that their parents are back home in Guatemala,” Miller wrote on X. “But a Democrat judge is refusing to let them reunify with their parents.”
The US Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, and HHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Guatemala’s foreign ministry declined to comment.
‘CLEAR VIOLATION’
Within the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement, which cares for unaccompanied children until they can be placed with US sponsors, signs of the new deportation effort emerged last week.
Melissa Johnston, director of the HHS’ unaccompanied children program, sent an email to staff prohibiting the US release of Guatemalan children in federal custody except for those sponsored by parents or legal guardians in the country, according to a copy reviewed by Reuters.
In their complaint on Sunday, the National Immigration Law Center and Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights said the deportations would be a “clear violation of the unambiguous protections that Congress has provided them as vulnerable children.”
The complaint said that in Guatemala, the children “may face abuse, neglect, persecution, or even torture, against their best interests.”
Among the plaintiffs was a 10-year-old indigenous Guatemalan girl whose mother had died and who had suffered abuse and neglect from other caretakers, the complaint said. The girl was detained at a US government shelter in South Texas, the complaint said.
Several of the 10 plaintiffs had expressed fear of returning to Guatemala, the complaint said. The children have been in shelters or foster care in California, Texas, Pennsylvania and New York, it said.
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