A judge stopped the federal government from deporting hundreds of unaccompanied Guatemalan children on Sunday. CNN was the first to report that the Trump administration was trying to repatriate more than 600 children in coordination with the government in Guatemala.
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Attorneys for 10 of the children said in court papers filed late overnight Saturday that planes were reportedly going to take off during the weekend.
They argue the United States government’s plan is unlawful, and violates the children’s right to due process and the Constitution’s protections against discrimination based on national origin.
“It is a dark and dangerous moment for this country when our government chooses to target orphaned 10-year-olds and denies them their most basic legal right to present their case before an immigration judge,” Efrén C. Olivares, vice president of litigation and legal strategy at the National Immigration Law Center, said in a statement.
Lawyers for the federal government said the children aren’t being deported, but reunited at their parents’ or guardians’ requests. The Associated Press reported lawyers for the children dispute this assertion.
In court documents, children reported being threatened and abused in Guatemala. A ten-year-old said they did not have family in the country that can take care of them, and a teen said they believe if they are sent back, they will be in danger.
Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, according to the AP, ruled that the kids cannot be deported for at least 14 days. Following a hearing on Sunday, she said they need to be taken off the planes as the case makes its way through the courts.
CBS News reported that at the hearing, Drew Ensign, the Justice Department’s lawyer, said deportations planes were prepared to take off on Sunday, but they were still on U.S. soil. One plane took off earlier, but had come back, Ensign said.
Ensign, CBS wrote, said children on the planes would be in the custody of Department of Health and Human Services once off the plane.
Sooknanan wrote that she does not want there to be any “ambiguity,” and that the decision applies to any Guatemalan minors who came to America without their families.
