A group of children who were loaded onto planes by federal officials overnight to be sent back to Guatemala will remain in the U.S. for now, thanks to a federal judge’s order over Labor Day weekend.
Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, temporarily blocked the flights early Sunday after attorneys for the kids argued federal officials were violating the law and sending the children into potential danger.
Her order comes amid a crackdown on immigration under President Donald Trump, who has vowed to carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history.” Chicago is expected to be the Trump administration’s next target amid the crackdown, with city officials already preparing for the arrival of federal law enforcement agents.
“I do not want there to be any ambiguity,” Sooknanan said at a Sunday hearing, noting that her order applies broadly to Guatemalan minors who arrived in the U.S. without their parents or guardians. As a result, hundreds of unaccompanied kids who arrived from Guatemala will stay in the U.S. for at least two weeks as the legal fight plays out.
“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,” Sooknanan said in court.
Sooknanan added that she has “conflicting narratives from both sides,” noting that what she heard from the children’s attorneys “doesn’t quite line up with” what the government said.
Minutes after the hearing, five charter buses pulled up to a plane at Valley International Airport in Harlingen, Texas, a hub for deportation flights. Hours earlier, authorities had walked dozens of passengers — perhaps 50 — toward the plane in an area restricted to government planes. Passengers wore colored clothing typically used in government-run shelters for migrant children.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller has since accused Sooknanan of “effectively kidnapping these migrant children and refusing to let them return home to their parents in their home country.”
The Trump administration insists it is reuinting the Guatemalan children — at the Central American nation’s request — with parents or guardians who sought their return. Meanwhile, lawyers for at least some of the minors say that’s untrue and argue that in any event, authorities still would have to follow a legal process that they did not.
One girl said her parents, in Guatemala, got a strange phone call a few weeks ago saying the U.S. was deporting her, according to attorney Efrén C. Olivares of the National Immigration Law Center. The 16-year-old, who’s been living in a New York shelter, said in a court filing that she’s an honors student about to start 11th grade, loves living in the U.S. and is “deeply afraid of being deported.”
Other children — identified only by their initials — said in court documents that they had been neglected, abandoned, physically threatened or abused in their home country.
“I do not have any family in Guatemala that can take good care of me,” a 10-year-old said in a court filing. A 16-year-old recalled experiencing “threats against my life” in Guatemala.
“If I am sent back, I believe I will be in danger,” the teen added.
Sunday’s order came in a court case filed in Washington, but similar legal actions have been filed elsewhere, including in Arizona, where the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project said one of its clients is a 12-year-old asylum-seeker who has chronic kidney disease, needs dialysis to stay alive and will need a kidney transplant.
Two other plaintiffs, a 10-year-old boy and his 3-year-old sister, don’t have family in Guatemala and don’t want to return, according to the group.
As the developments played out in the U.S., families gathered at an air base in Guatemala’s capital, Guatemala City, in anticipation of the flights. Gilberto López said he drove through the night from his remote town after his 17-year-old nephew called at midnight to say he was being deported from Texas. The boy left Guatemala two years ago, at age 15, to work in the U.S. and was detained about a month ago, López said.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday.
___
Additional reporting by the Associated Press.
