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Donald Trump administration can't deport Guatemalan kids in its care, for now. Here's why
Judge Timothy J. Kelly's decision impacts Guatemalan children who came to US without parents and are currently living in government shelters and foster care.
A US federal judge extended on Saturday the measures preventing the DonaldTrump administration from deporting Guatemalan migrant children in government custody.
Judge Timothy J. Kelly's decision impacts Guatemalan children who came to the United States without parents or family and are currently living in government shelters and foster care.
The judge said he needed a brief extension to continue studying the issue because the facts of the case kept changing until the September 10 hearing. His decision comes after the government, during that hearing, backtracked on previous claims that the children's parents requested them back.
A federal judge in Washington granted advocates a 14-day temporary restraining order, essentially preventing the Donald Trump administration from removing migrant children in its care except in limited circumstances where an immigration judge had already ordered their removal after reviewing their cases. The current order extends that protection until September 16.
Why is the Donald Trump administration trying to remove migrant children from the United States?
The federal court decision that came on Saturday stems from a Labour Day weekend operation when the Donald Trump administration attempted to remove dozens of Guatemalan migrant children who had come to the US alone and were living in government shelters and foster care.
Late on August 30, the administration notified shelters where migrant children travelling alone initially live after they cross the southern border that they would be returning the children to Guatemala and that they needed to have the kids ready to leave in a matter of hours.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) picked up the Guatemalan children from shelters and foster care and transported them to the airport. The government has said in court filings that it identified 457 children for possible removal to Guatemala, although that list was eventually whittled down to 327. In the end, 76 got as far as boarding planes in El Paso and Harlingen, Texas, early morning on August 31 and were set to depart to Guatemala in what the government described as a first phase.
Immigration and children's advocates, who had been alerted to possible efforts to remove Guatemalan minors, immediately sued the Trump administration to prevent the children's removal. The advocates argued that many of these children were fleeing abuse or violence in their home countries and that the government was bypassing longstanding legal procedures meant to protect young migrants from being returned to potentially abusive or violent places.
The government has argued that it has the right to return children in its care, and it was acting at the behest of the Guatemalan government.
The Guatemalan government has said that it was concerned about minors in US custody who were going to turn 18 and would then be at risk of being turned over to adult detention facilities.
Children who cross the border alone are generally transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which falls under the Health and Human Services Department. The children usually live in a network of shelters across the country that the resettlement office oversees until they are eventually released to a sponsor, usually a relative.
