A federal judge in Washington has issued an emergency order stopping the Trump administration from deporting nearly 700 unaccompanied Guatemalan children — at least for now — after immigrant rights lawyers called the move “illegal.”
The late-night legal scramble began Saturday, when attorneys for 10 Guatemalan minors, ages 10 to 17, warned that planes could be taking off within hours to send the children back to Central America. On Sunday, Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan blocked any deportations for at least 14 days and ordered that the children be removed from departing flights and returned to Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) facilities while the case plays out.
Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, opened the hastily scheduled Sunday hearing by making sure the Justice Department had received her expanded order. “I do not want there to be any ambiguity,” she said, stressing that her ruling covers all Guatemalan minors who arrived in the U.S. without parents or guardians.
Government lawyers argued the children weren’t being deported but reunited with parents or guardians at their request — a claim the children’s attorneys dispute in several cases. “I have conflicting narratives from both sides here,” Sooknanan noted, adding that the government’s version “doesn’t quite line up” with what advocates had told her.
The fight is spreading fast. Similar emergency filings have been made in Arizona and Illinois to block deportations of unaccompanied minors.
Meanwhile, at Harlingen airport near the Texas-Mexico border, Sunday morning looked like a scene in motion: buses carrying migrants rolled onto the tarmac, federal agents moved quickly between vehicles and waiting planes, police cars circled the perimeter, and reporters were pushed back from the chain-link fences. On the runway, engines idled as ground crews prepped for takeoff — all while the legal battle unfolded hundreds of miles away.
According to a letter from Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the Trump administration plans to remove nearly 700 Guatemalan children who crossed the border alone. Guatemala has said it is ready to receive them.
An internal email from Melissa Johnston, who heads ORR’s unaccompanied children program, instructed staff last Thursday to halt the release of Guatemalan children unless they were going to parents or legal guardians in the U.S., Reuters reported.
Lawyers for the children say the U.S. government has no authority to remove them and is denying them due process by blocking asylum claims or other immigration relief. Many have active cases in immigration court. The legal filing accuses the government of “illegally transferring them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody to put them on flights to Guatemala, where they may face abuse, neglect, persecution, or torture.”
By law, unaccompanied minors are placed in ORR custody after being encountered at the border, often living in shelters or foster care until they can be released to a sponsor — usually a family member — in the U.S.
In their Sunday complaint, the National Immigration Law Center and the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights called the deportations a “clear violation” of protections Congress has given vulnerable children. “Defendants are imminently planning to illegally transfer Plaintiffs to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody to put them on flights to Guatemala… against their best interests,” the filing states.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. Guatemala’s foreign ministry also declined to comment.
