Judge keeps block on Trump push to deport Guatemalan unaccompanied children

While a legal challenge is being resolved, a judge in the US has ordered the administration of President Donald Trump to refrain from deporting Guatemalan unaccompanied migrant children with active immigration cases.

Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee based in Washington, DC, sharply criticizes the administration’s unproven claim that the children’s parents demanded deportation.

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Surprise intervention by Trump’s administration’s surprise deportation of 76 Guatemalan minors led to a lawsuit and an unexpected hearing that temporarily halted the action.

The Justice Department later disputed the claim that the children’s parents had requested that they be returned home, but the department later revoked it.

A Guatemalan attorney general’s internal report that claimed the majority of the roughly 600 Guatemalan children in the US custody could not be reached was published following Reuters’ publication. Many of the people contacted stated in the report that they did not want their children to be brought back to Guatemala.

In light of the Guatemalan government report, Kelly claimed in a 43-page opinion that the Trump administration’s explanation “crumbled like a house of cards.”

According to Kelly, “There is no evidence before the Court that these children’s parents sought their return.”

Guatemalan unaccompanied children who have not received a final removal order or the US attorney general’s permission to leave while their cases are ongoing were quickly deported by the federal judge.

The children were unintentionally removed from their shelter beds in the middle of the night, driven to the airport, and sometimes even boarded airplanes, according to the judge’s ruling, leaving them worried and perplexed.

A young girl from McAllen, Texas, cited evidence from the case, wrote Kelly, citing the fact that she was so terrified that she vomited.

The US Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin, claiming that the decision would prevent children from reuniting with their parents.

McLaughlin said, “These kids will now have to go to shelters,” calling it “disgraceful and immoral.”

Without a parent or guardian, unaccompanied migrants who cross US borders are treated like they’re being placed with a family member or foster family are subject to federal law’s guidelines.

Even though she misses her son, a Guatemalan mother informed Reuters that her son, 16, would like to stay in California despite the Trump administration’s deportation effort.

She said in a conversation with him earlier this month on the outskirts of Guatemala City, “This is what he wanted.”