A federal judge has issued a ruling blocking the Trump administration’s attempt to rapidly deport hundreds of unaccompanied Guatemalan children, finding that the government’s justifications “crumbled like a house of cards” under judicial scrutiny.
On Labor Day weekend, several Executive Branch agencies launched what U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly described as a hasty operation to expel unaccompanied alien children from the United States. Just before midnight on August 30, agencies told children’s caretakers they had as little as two hours to prepare children for pickup.
The children, ranging from ages 10 to 17, were roused from their beds in the middle of the night and driven to airports where some were loaded onto planes. At the New Hope McAllen shelter in Texas, one young girl was so frightened she vomited. A 17-year-old described being awakened around 2 a.m. and feeling like he “lost his breath” when told to gather his belongings.
Initially, the Trump administration claimed the deportations were part of a “reunification” program to return children to parents who had requested their return. At an emergency court hearing, government counsel called it “fairly outrageous” that plaintiffs had sued to stop what they characterized as family reunifications.
However, Judge Kelly found there was “no evidence before the Court that the parents of these children sought their return”. A subsequent report from the Guatemalan Attorney General revealed that officials could not even track down parents for most of the children identified for deportation. Of 609 adolescents on the government’s list, officials only had phone numbers for 204 families and could confirm information for just 115.
More damning still, the report found that “none of them was requesting their child’s return”. In fact, many families were “surprised—and some even annoyed” by the outreach because they did not expect their children to be returned to Guatemala.
Judge Kelly, who was appointed by President Trump in 2017, ruled that the administration’s actions likely violate the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA). This federal law establishes specific procedures for removing unaccompanied children from non-contiguous countries, requiring them to be placed in standard removal proceedings, given access to counsel, and made eligible for voluntary departure.
The administration argued it had authority under 6 U.S.C. § 279 to “reunify” children with parents abroad, claiming this was separate from removal proceedings. However, Kelly rejected this interpretation, finding that the government’s “reunification” plan was actually removing children from the United States and thus must comply with TVPRA safeguards.
The judge raised questions about whether the administration was applying its own criteria in good faith. He noted discrepancies between the 327 children ORR claimed were “ultimately eligible” for reunification and the much smaller number of families Guatemala could actually locate and confirm would accept their children.
Kelly also criticized the criterion excluding children whose attorneys had “affirmatively protested” their removal, noting it would have been impossible for attorneys to object to a plan implemented in the middle of the night on a holiday weekend with just hours of notice.
Whistleblowers reported to Congress that “many children identified for repatriation” had “indicators of being a victim of child abuse, including death threats, gang violence, [and] human trafficking”, raising questions about whether safety criteria were properly applied.
Judge Kelly provisionally certified a class consisting of all unaccompanied alien children from Guatemala in government custody who have not received a final removal order or permission from the Attorney General to voluntarily depart. He granted a preliminary injunction prohibiting defendants from “transferring, repatriating, removing, or otherwise facilitating the transport” of any class member from the United States.
While this ruling specifically addresses Guatemalan children, attorneys noted that other unaccompanied minors from Honduras and El Salvador may also be targeted for similar removal efforts.
