In the ongoing hardline anti-immigration campaign, a US judge has ordered the administration of US President Donald Trump to deport unaccompanied Guatemalan children for at least the next two weeks.
Some Guatemalan children were reportedly already huddled inside the planes at a Texas airport as a result of a complaint filed by a pro-immigrant advocacy group.
The National Immigration Law Center filed a petition in relation to 10 children between the ages of 10 and 17 in response to District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan’s emergency decree.
After initially preventing the group’s deportation, Sooknanan, who lives in Washington, DC, expanded the order to include all Guatemalan children who had arrived in the US without a parent or guardian.
Due to rumors that some of the children were being deported from the US over the Labor Day weekend, Sooknanan also suggested holding a hearing on the matter on Sunday.
The judge noted that her decision extended to unaccompanied Guatemalan minors on Sunday, noting that there was no “I do not want there to be any ambiguity.”
Following an agreement with Guatemala, the Trump administration reportedly planned to begin deporting children to the country this weekend, according to reports in the US media.
According to the legal challenge brought by the National Immigration Law Center, such a move would constitute a “clear violation of the unwavering protections that Congress has provided them as vulnerable children.”
The US government was “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,” the complaint continued.
Guatemala’s Foreign Minister Carlos Martinez confirmed on Friday that the country would accept hundreds of American-born children.
Trump has made numerous attempts to deport refugees and immigrants since his second term as president, which officially kicked off in January.
Legal issues have plagued his administration’s anti-immigration policies, which have included sending hundreds of people to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
A Salvadoran man who was legally resident in the US state of Maryland and Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the most well-known face of the Trump administration’s crackdown, was mistakenly deported in March. According to his attorneys, he was brutally beaten and subjected to psychological torture while incarcerated there.
Source: Aljazeera
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