A federal judge issued an emergency order that blocks the possible deportation of a group of Guatemalan children who had crossed the border without their families, with a hearing scheduled for Sunday, after the lawyers said that the government seemed to be preparing moving that would violate the laws that offer protections for migrant children.
The lawyers of 10 Guatemalan minors, from 10 to 17 years, said in the judicial documents presented on Saturday night that there were reports that the planes would take off in a matter of hours for the Central American country. But a federal judge in Washington said that these children could not be deported for at least 14 days unless she governs otherwise, with a virtual hearing scheduled for Sunday afternoon.
Similar emergency requests were submitted in other parts of the country. The lawyers in Arizona and Illinois asked federal judges there to block deportations of unaccompanied minors, underlining how the fight for government efforts has spread rapidly.
Alarm camps raised among immigrants’ defenders
The episode has generated alarms among immigrant defenders, who say that it can represent a violation of federal laws designed to protect children who arrive without their parents. While deportations are waiting for now, the case underlines the high -risk clash between the government’s immigration application efforts and the legal safeguards that Congress created for some of the most vulnerable migrants.
At the border area airport, the scene on Sunday morning was unequivocally active. The buses carrying migrants stopped in the asphalt when the groups of federal agents moved quickly between the vehicles and the expected airplanes. Police cars surrounded the perimeter, and security officers and guards pushed journalists from the chain rental fences that are aligned in the field. On the track, the airplanes sat with inactive engines, terrestrial crews that made final preparations as if the outputs could arrive at any time, all as the battle of the court developed hundreds of miles away in Washington.
Shaina Aber, from the Acacia Justice Center, a legal defense group of immigrants, said she was notified on Saturday night that an official list had been written with the names of Guatemalan children whom the US administration would try to send back to her country of origin. The defenders learned that the flights would stop Harlingen cities and the passage of Texas, Aber said.
She said she had heard that federal immigration officials and customs compliance “were still taking children”, since they received no guidance on the court order.
The National Security Department, Immigration and Customs Control and the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to comments requests on Sunday.
The Trump administration plans to eliminate almost 700 Guatemalan children
The Trump administration plans to eliminate almost 700 Guatemalan children who arrived in the United States without accompaniment, according to a letter sent Friday by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. The Guatemalan government has said it is ready to take them.
It is another step in the wide efforts to apply the immigration of the Trump administration, which include plans to send an increase in Chicago officers for an immigration repression, increase deportations and put an end to protections for people who have had permission to live and work in the United States.
Guatemalan children’s lawyers said the United States government does not have the authority to eliminate young people and are depriving them of due process by preventing them from pursuing asylum or immigration relief claims. Many have active cases in the immigration courts, according to the presentation of the Bar Association in Washington.
Although children are supposed to be under the care and custody of the refugee resettlement office, the Government is “illegally transfer them to the custody of immigration and customs compliance to put them on flights to Guatemala, where they can face abuse, neglect, persecution or torture”, discuss the presentation by lawyers before immigrant centers for the rights of children and the center of children National Immigration.
A lawyer from another defense group, the National Center for Youth Law, said that the organization that began listening to legal service providers a few weeks ago that national security investigations were interviewing children, particularly from Guatemala, in the Office of Refugee Rease Facilities. HSI is ICE’s research arm.
The agents asked the children about their relatives in Guatemala, said the lawyer, Becky Wolozin.
Then, on Friday, the defenders throughout the country began to say that the hearings of the Immigration Court of their young clients were being canceled, Wolozin said.
Migrant children who travel without their parents or guardians are delivered to the refugee resettlement office when officials are along the border between the United States and Mexico. Once in the United States, children often live in shelters supervised by the Government or with parenting care families until they can be released to a sponsor, usually a family member, who lives in the country.
Minors can request asylum, youth immigration state or visas for sexual exploitation victims.
Due to his age, often traumatic experiences to reach the US, his treatment is one of the most delicate problems in immigration. Defense groups have already sued to ask the courts to stop the new investigation procedures of the Trump administration for unaccompanied children, saying that the changes keep families separated for longer and are inhuman.
Guatemala says he is willing to receive unaccompanied minors
Guatemalan Foreign Minister Carlos Martínez said on Friday that the Government told the United States that he is willing to receive hundreds of Guatemalan minors who arrived in the United States without accompaniment and are arrested in government facilities.
Guatemala is particularly concerned with minors who could approve the age limits for children’s facilities and be sent to adult detention centers, he said.
President Bernardo Arévalo has said that his government has a moral and legal obligation to advocate for children. His comments occurred days after the National Secretary of National Security Kristi Noem visited Guatemala.
