Judge Blocks Sending Children Back to Guatemala

A federal judge ordered an emergency stop to a Trump administration plan to send more than 600 unaccompanied Guatemalan children back to their home country after immigrant advocacy groups sued, Politico reported Sunday

U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, issued the order shortly after 4 a.m. Sunday, stating that the "exigent circumstances" described in the lawsuit warranted immediate action "to maintain the status quo until a hearing can be set."

Sooknanan at first scheduled a hearing on the matter for 3 p.m. Sunday, then moved it up to 12:30 p.m. after being told that some minors covered by the suit were "in the process of being removed from the United States."

Sooknanan said at the hearing, "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."

Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign disputed that the transfer of children were deportations at all, but would actually be reunifications of children and their parents, Politico reported.

"These are not removals under the statute," Ensign said. "These are repatriations. ... It's outrageous that the plaintiffs are trying to interfere with these reunifications."

During the hearing, Ensign said the effort was the result of discussions with the Guatemalan government, which confirmed the parents' desire to bring the children back.

Ensign declared that "all of these children have parents or guardians in Guatemala who have requested their return."

But attorney Efren Olivares of the National Immigration Law Center said that "there are many children who do not meet the criteria Mr. Ensign described" and accused the Trump administration of cutting short the required legal process.

Sooknanan said, "I have conflicting narratives from both sides here," adding that what she heard from the advocates for the children "doesn't quite line up with what I'm getting from the government."

The 600 children arrived in the U.S. alone and are in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement. According to lawyers for the children, the administration is preparing to send them back to Guatemala without notice or a chance to contest their deportation — in some cases abruptly halting their pending immigration proceedings.

The judge began the Sunday afternoon hearing by making sure the Justice Department received her expanded order and that government officials at HHS and the Department of Homeland Security were aware of it, declaring, "I do not want there to be any ambiguity about what I am ordering." 

• Trump Admin Ready to Send Guatemalan Kids Back Home
• 14,000 US-bound Migrants Have Returned South since Trump Border Changes, UN Says