Donald Trump’s administration is trying to convince dozens of unaccompanied immigrant children to self-deport through “misinformation, coercion, threats and fear,” according to lawyers representing them.
Last year, attorneys successfully blocked a middle-of-the-night operation to deport Guatemalan minors in government custody following a series of harrowing affidavits describing their fears of abruptly returning to their home countries.
A federal judge temporarily blocked the administration from expelling targeted children, who are in government-supported foster programs and long-term shelters after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border alone.
But attorneys are now asking a judge to hold administration officials in civil contempt of court for allegedly trying to get around the court’s order blocking their removal.
One child reported that a Customs and Border Protection agent “shouted, cursed, and threatened [him] with a dog and a stun gun,” according to lawyers.
The indigenous Guatemalan boy at Compass Connections Harlingen in Texas says his father is disabled and his parents cannot support him in his home country.
After threatening him, the agent told the boy he could accept a “voluntary return” or remain detained for an extended period of time, and the officer refused to let him speak with his family, according to lawyers.
The child then signed the paperwork, but the officer said he was being sent to a shelter after officers appeared to be unable to remove him. The child said he “believes his prayers were answered” by being transferred to the shelter rather than returned to Guatemala, lawyers wrote.
Another Guatemalan boy who speaks Kiche as his primary language was told to sign “voluntary return” paperwork or he “would be detained for a long time,” according to lawyers.
He signed without knowing what the paperwork said and lawyers intervened to help him revoke his acceptance of “expedited voluntary return,” lawyers wrote.
But the “coercion” tactics don’t only apply to Guatemalan children, according to court filings.
A child from a different country was “handcuffed and interviewed by seven federal immigration officers without a parent or legal counsel present,” lawyers said. When the child noticed that an agent’s written answers to questions did not match his response, the officer allegedly told him: “I don’t care.”
Staff with the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project say they have identified at least 13 children who were forced to sign “voluntary return” documents that required attorneys to intervene.
The children described officers “behaving aggressively — shouting, insulting, cursing, grabbing, threatening, and handcuffing children,” and leaving them “scared and confused,” according to attorneys.
After a fast-paced legal battle over Labor Day weekend last year, District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan raced to respond to reports that unaccompanied migrant children were being loaded onto planes to be imminently removed — echoing Trump’s secretive efforts to deport hundreds of Venezuelan men after invoking the Alien Enemies Act in March.
Trump-appointed District Judge Timothy Kelly later extended the injunction.
Lawyers for the children are now calling on Kelly to reprimand administration officials over alleged violations of their orders.
In court filings last year, more than a dozen Guatemalan teenagers described overwhelming fears of returning to their home country.
They described childhoods in neglect, threats of extortion and gang violence against them or their families, and returning to homes or government shelters where they were abused or trafficked.
“I am certain the people there who hurt me and threatened to kill me before will once again hurt me and will carry out threats to kill me,” one 16-year-old wrote.
A 16-year-old LGBT+ child who is seeking asylum in the United States said they fear rape and forced marriage if they were sent back.
“If I had to return to Guatemala,” the teenager wrote in court documents, “I would kill myself.”
The Independent has requested comment from CBP and Homeland Security.
