A federal judge on Sunday morning blocked the Trump Administration from deporting 600 unaccompanied Guatemalan children.
The Trump Administration was preparing to deport 600 Guatemalan children who entered the US alone during the Biden years.
The children, who do not have a parent in the US, were in the care of the Health and Human Services Department. The Trump Administration worked with the Guatemalan government to devise a plan to safely return the children to their families at home.
US District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, in a 4 am order blocked the Trump Admin from deporting the children within hours of a lawsuit filed by a ‘civil rights’ group.
Judge Sooknanan is holding a hearing on the matter on Sunday. She moved up her emergency hearing from 3 pm ET on Sunday to 12:30 pm ET.
According to Politico, Judge Sooknanan was calling DOJ lawyers in the middle of the night to notify them of the lawsuit and emergency hearing.
DOJ lawyer Drew Ensign told the judge that all 600 Guatemalan children in are still in the United States, and the planes in El Paso, Texas, are grounded. Ensign said it’s possible one of the planes had taken off and was returned, according to Politico.
The judge asked Ensign when the children will be deplaned and put back in custody of the HHS.
ENSIGN says all 600 children in question are still in the United States, planes are grounded and will not leave while the judge’s order is in place. He said it’s possible one had taken off and was returned. https://t.co/4QRs4oLf0G
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 31, 2025
Politico reported:
A federal judge has ordered an emergency halt to an apparent plan by the Trump administration to deport more than 600 unaccompanied Guatemalan children to their home country — some within a matter of hours — after immigrant advocacy groups sued, calling the unannounced plan illegal.
U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan issued the order just after 4 a.m. Sunday, finding that the “exigent circumstances” described in the lawsuit warranted immediate action “to maintain the status quo until a hearing can be set.” The judge, a Biden appointee, also scheduled a virtual hearing on the matter for 3 p.m. Sunday.
The roughly 600 children arrived in the United States alone and are currently in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. According to lawyers for the children, the administration is preparing to send them back to Guatemala without notice or a chance to contest their deportation — in some cases abruptly halting their pending immigration proceedings.
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