A United States judge has ordered the administration of President Donald Trump to refrain from deporting Guatemalan unaccompanied migrant children with active immigration cases while a legal challenge plays out.
Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee based in Washington, DC, kept in place on Thursday an earlier judicial block on the policy, sharply criticising the administration’s unproven assertion that the children’s parents wanted them deported.
Trump’s administration attempted to deport 76 Guatemalan minors being held in US custody in a surprise move in the early morning on August 31, sparking a lawsuit and emergency hearing that temporarily halted the move.
Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign initially said that the children’s parents requested they be returned home, but the department later rescinded that claim.
The reversal came after Reuters published an internal report by a Guatemalan attorney general showing that most parents of the roughly 600 Guatemalan children in US custody could not be contacted. Of those contacted, many did not want their children returned to Guatemala, the report said.
In a 43-page opinion, Kelly said the Trump administration’s explanation “crumbled like a house of cards” in light of the Guatemalan government report.