A federal judge has halted a plan to send more than 600 unaccompanied Guatemalan minors back to Guatemala after a lawsuit brought by immigration advocacy groups.
In the early hours on Sunday, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan issued an order that found that the “exigent circumstances” described in the lawsuit necessitated immediate action to delay the plan until a hearing date could be set.
Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, initially had the hearing scheduled for later in the day but moved it up upon finding out that many of the children were already boarding planes back to Guatemala.
“I have the government attempting to remove minor children from the country in the wee hours of the morning on a holiday weekend, which is surprising, but here we are,” Judge Sooknanan said.
She also noted that the information she received from the plaintiffs versus that of the Trump administration did not line up.
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement currently has custody of the children. The lawyers representing the children said that the administration wants to send them back to Guatemala without notice or the ability to contest deportation.
Attorneys for the Trump administration have called the deportations a part of a “first of its kind pilot program” with which the Guatemalan government is cooperating.
Drew Ensign, a lawyer for the Department of Justice, has taken umbrage with the children being sent back home being called “deportation,” favoring reunification of children with their parents.”
“These are not removals under the statute. These are repatriations. It’s outrageous that the plaintiffs are trying to interfere with the reunifications,” Ensign said.
At the hearing, Ensign said that the planes were currently grounded, but admitted that one may have taken off but returned to the United States with children on board.
“All of these children have parents or guardians in Guatemala who have requested their return,” he said.
But, immigration advocates dispute this and have accused the administration of flouting the legally-required process of dealing with unaccompanied minors.
“There are children who do not meet the criteria Mr. Ensign described,” attorney Efren Olivares of the National Immigration Law Center said. He also noted that many of the children were already on planes at airports in Harlingen and El Paso, Texas.
The plaintiffs represented in the case range in age from 10 to 17. The attorney for the NILC have asserted that federal immigration laws do not allow for unaccompanied children to be placed for expedited deportation and allow additional protections for those seeking asylum.
“All unaccompanied children – regardless of the circumstances of their arrival to the United States – receive the benefit of full immigration proceedings, including a hearing on claims for relief before an immigration judge.”
The plaintiffs also claim that the administration is exposing the children to harm by returning them to a country where they fear persecution.
“I do not want there to be any ambiguity about what I am ordering,” the judge, who ordered a broad blockade on the deportations, said.
The Trump administration is also arguing that previous administrations have done the same thing (deported unaccompanied minors).
This case has come on the heels of a similar case filed in Chicago where another federal judge also halted the deportation of four Guatemalan minors.
