Federal judge blocks deportations of unaccompanied Guatemalan minors

A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration's deportations of unaccompanied Guatemalan minors.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, indefinitely blocked the deportations as the case moves forward, The Hill news outlet reported.

Kelly said the administration’s deportation plans likely violate the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, a law enacted to address concerns about unaccompanied immigrant children in the government’s custody. 

“While Defendants plunged ahead in the middle of the night with their ‘reunification’ plan and then represented to a judge that a parent or guardian had requested each child’s return, that turned out not to be true,” Kelly wrote in his decision. 
 
“Such a rushed, seemingly error-laden operation to send unaccompanied alien children back to their home countries is one of the things that the TVPRA’s process prevents,” he continued.

The Department of Justice argued in court that the deportations would be lawful and that the judge had no authority to intervene in the case.

“This case is uncomplicated, both legally and morally: where possible, unaccompanied alien children should be reunited with their parents or guardians. Their continued separation is a tragedy to be cured, not prolonged as Plaintiffs request classwide, regardless of a specific child’s best interest,” the DOJ wrote in court filings.

“There may be a better policy solution to this difficult, complex issue than what law requires,” Kelly wrote. “But a ‘policy disagreement with Congress,’ of course, is no license for the Executive ‘to ignore statutory mandates.’”

The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights and 10 Guatemalan unaccompanied minors aged 10 to 17 facing deportation filed the lawsuit, represented by the National Immigration Law Center. 

“Today’s court decision is a significant victory for the hundreds of children who are now safe from the Trump administration’s unlawful attempt to expel them from the United States,” Efrén Olivares, the National Immigration Law Center’s vice president of litigation and legal strategy, said in a statement.

“The court saw through the government’s repeated misrepresentations of critical facts to try to justify the indefensible targeting of vulnerable children who would have faced danger if sent to other countries,” he continued.

The judge's order blocks the administration from deporting the children or any other unaccompanied Guatemalan minor who has not received either a final removal order or permission from the attorney general to voluntarily depart from the U.S.

The order was more narrow that the plaintiffs requested, as they sought the block to cover unaccompanied minors facing deportation from all other countries except Canada or Mexico, which are treated differently under the TVPRA.