A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has again ruled to block the Trump administration from deporting hundreds of lone Guatemalan children.
Lawsuits were filed in D.C., Arizona and Illinois on behalf of children who were woken up in the middle of the night over Labor Day weekend and nearly removed on flights back to Guatemala.
The Trump administration initially argued the children’s return was requested by their parents — even though many had active cases for asylum and other immigration pathways underway.
This week, a federal judge enacted a preliminary injunction that blocks further removal efforts while the case is underway.
Efrén Olivares is the vice president of litigation and legal strategy at the National Immigration Law Center — one of the groups behind the suit.
He says the hold applies to children in government custody nationwide, including some in Arizona.
“If they do not have a final order of removal or a grant to voluntary departure, the government cannot remove them. And that is just what the law provides,” he said. “This just adds more persuasive authority that every court that has looked at this issue has reached the same conclusion. … That these efforts by the administration — at least this early on in the litigation — are likely to be unlawful.”
A whistleblower report filed to Congress and the judge in this case says at least 30 of the children in Office of Refugee Resettlement custody, or ORR, would face persecution if sent back to Guatemala — despite testimony from the agency’s Acting Director Angie Salazar during a hearing for the D.C. case this month.
Salazar told U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly that 327 children identified for return to Guatemala had been screened to determine whether they’d face risks if sent back to their country.
“These whistleblowers reasonably believe, based on information available in ORR’s database for tracking unaccompanied children, that at least 30 and possibly more children who were deemed eligible for imminent return to Guatemala, have indicators of being a victim of child abuse, including death threats, gang violence, human trafficking and/or have expressed fear of return to Guatemala, including in some cases concern for harm and threats from their parents,” the report reads.
Last week, a federal judge in Tucson ruled to block deportation efforts in the case filed in Arizona for another two weeks. The case was originally filed on behalf of 53 Guatemalan children in Arizona and has since expanded to include others, including some from Honduras.
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