A federal judge temporarily prevented the Trump Administration from deporting hundreds of unaccompanied children back to their home country of Guatemala, just hours before some were slated for departure.
District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan issued the directive at 4 a.m. on Sunday, responding to legal action from immigration advocacy groups who had found out that facilities holding unaccompanied children were suddenly ordered to prepare them for deportation within two hours.
Attorneys from the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) stated that the children—who are in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)—were scheduled to be transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deported to Guatemala on Sunday.
They received memoranda sent by the ORR to shelters housing the children on Saturday, instructing them to “take proactive measures to ensure [unaccompanied children] are prepared for discharge within 2 hours of receiving this notification.” The directive also mandated that shelters “have two prepared sack lunches” and one suitcase per child.
The attorneys asserted in the lawsuit that they were filing on behalf of “hundreds of Guatemalan children at imminent risk of unlawful removal from the United States,” with ages ranging between 10 and 17 years.
The lawsuit contended that the estimated 600 children had “active proceedings before immigration courts across the country,” and that their removal from the country would violate the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the Constitution.
“All unaccompanied children — regardless of the circumstances of their arrival to the United States — receive the benefit of full immigration proceedings, including a hearing on claims for relief before an immigration judge,” the attorneys wrote in the legal filing.
“Congress provided even further procedural protection to unaccompanied minors in removal proceedings by mandating that their claims for asylum be heard in the first instance before an asylum officer in a non-adversarial setting rather than in an adversarial courtroom setting,” they added.
Judge Sooknanan granted the plaintiffs’ petition for a restraining order to halt the deportations “to maintain the existing situation until a hearing can be scheduled.”
“The Court ORDERS that the Defendants discontinue any ongoing efforts to transfer, repatriate, remove, or otherwise facilitate the transport of any Plaintiff or member of the putative class from the United States,” Judge Sooknanan wrote. A hearing was scheduled for Sunday afternoon.
Efrén C. Olivares, Vice President of Litigation and Legal Strategy at the National Immigration Law Center, criticized the abrupt decision to deport the children.
“It represents a grim and perilous period for this nation when our government opts to target orphaned 10-year-olds and deprives them of their most basic legal right to present their case before an immigration judge,” she remarked.
The ORR, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), stated that the deportations stemmed from an accord between the U.S. and Guatemala. Memos were sent to the children’s attorneys, advising them that the “Government of Guatemala has requested the return of certain unaccompanied alien children in federal custody for the purposes of reunifying the UAC with suitable family members.”
“This communication is provided as advance notice that removal proceedings may be dismissed to support the prompt repatriation of the child,” the memo, which was reviewed by TIME, indicated.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not provide a response to a request for comment. Similarly, ICE did not respond to a request for comment.