Sooknanan’s order was intended to be in place until an emergency hearing could be held in the afternoon. But there was initial confusion among lawyers whether the order applied to a limited number of children.
Dozens of children were then removed by immigration authorities from shelters overnight and boarded onto chartered planes.
After lawyers for the children notified the judge, the emergency hearing was moved up to midday, and the judge clarified her order to apply to all Guatemalan children in the custody of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement for the next 14 days while the case is pending. She added that the children must be taken off the planes.
About 2000 children, a majority of them from Guatemala, are currently being held in dozens of shelters.
“I don’t want there to be any ambiguity about what I am ordering,” said the judge. “You cannot remove any children” while the case proceeds.
In the hearing, the judge expressed frustration with the Government and her inability to reach its representatives in the early hours, before issuing her initial order.
“I have the Government attempting to remove minor children from the country in the wee hours of the morning on a holiday weekend, which is surprising,” she said.
The Government’s lawyer, Drew Ensign, said that the repatriations had been requested by the Guatemalan Government and that the children were to be reunited with parents and guardians in their home country.
“The US Government is trying to facilitate the return of these children to their parents or guardians, from whom they have been separated,” Ensign said.
Efrén Olivares, the lawyer representing the children, disputed that argument. At least some of the children “have not requested to return”, he said. “They don’t want to return.”
He added that the law prevents children from being removed expeditiously from the US until a judge has assessed the safety of their return. Many of the children have cases that are still pending, he said.
Carlos Ramíro Martínez, Guatemala’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, said last week that his country had been co-ordinating with the US and expected to receive more than 600 minors. In an interview on Saturday NZT, he told the New York Times that he hoped that the repatriations would happen in a gradual, organised manner.
Sooknanan’s order at least temporarily hamstrings the federal Government’s attempts to return to Guatemala hundreds of unaccompanied minors who have been in US custody after crossing the southern border.
The judge granted a request by the government lawyer to file a response opposing the order.
Though the judge’s order is temporary, it is the second recent setback for US President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
On Saturday, another judge blocked the Administration from carrying out rapid deportations far from the border, a cornerstone of the White House’s immigration policy.
The lawsuit over the Guatemalan children was filed after staff members at shelters that were holding the children were notified by email yesterday that they should prepare some of them to be sent back to Guatemala. Lawyers representing some of the children received a similar email.
In its lawsuit, the National Immigration Law Centre said that the children’s repatriation would violate federal law and the Constitution. It called the Government’s actions “unlawful and reckless”.
Ten children, between the ages of 10 and 16, are identified by their initials in the lawsuit. They have told judges that they are afraid to return to Guatemala, the lawsuit says.
The number of unaccompanied minors entering the US has plummeted since Trump began his second term.
Protections for migrant children
Migrant children have posed a particular challenge to the Trump Administration’s immigration agenda because they are entitled to special protections.
Hundreds of thousands of children, mainly from Central America, have crossed the southern border into the US in the past decade, often seeking to join friends or relatives.
Many of the minors have won the right to remain in the US permanently by proving that they were abandoned or persecuted in their home countries.
When unaccompanied children entering the US are taken into custody, they typically remain in shelters until they are released to sponsors or guardians who have been vetted.
The children the Trump Administration was seeking to deport have been awaiting release from the shelters.
“We are very concerned that our clients could be returned to unsafe situations,” said Alexa Sendukas, a managing lawyer with the Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Miriam Jordan and Aishvarya Kavi
Photographs by: Daniele Volpe
©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
