Judge Blocks Trump’s Late-Night Deportation of Hundreds of Guatemalan Children
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A federal judge stopped the Trump administration from illegally deporting as many as 700 Guatemalan children over the Labor Day weekend, ordering a last-minute block on their removals even as some children had already been boarded onto planes. The National Immigration Law Center filed an emergency request to stop the deportation flights, arguing that the children would face harm and abuse if they were returned to Guatemala. The children arrived in the United States as unaccompanied minors, and many are now living in shelters or foster care. The Trump administration insists it is acting at the request of the children’s families and the government of Guatemala. “There are protections for unaccompanied minors that provide how a child can be released from custody, to whom, and the process if they want to go back to their country,” says Efrén Olivares, an attorney representing Guatemalan unaccompanied minors. “If this were a benign repatriation to send children back to their parents, it wouldn’t be happening at midnight on Sunday of Labor Day weekend.”

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A federal judge stopped the Trump administration from illegally deporting as many as 700 Guatemalan children over the Labor Day weekend, ordering a last-minute block on their removals even as some children had already been boarded onto planes. The National Immigration Law Center filed an emergency request to stop the deportation flights, arguing that the children would face harm and abuse if they were returned to Guatemala. The children arrived in the United States as unaccompanied minors, and many are now living in shelters or foster care. The Trump administration insists it is acting at the request of the children’s families and the government of Guatemala.

“There are protections for unaccompanied minors that provide how a child can be released from custody, to whom, and the process if they want to go back to their country,” says Efrén Olivares, an attorney representing Guatemalan unaccompanied minors. “If this were a benign repatriation to send children back to their parents, it wouldn’t be happening at midnight on Sunday of Labor Day weekend.”

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