A federal judge on Sunday temporarily halted aircraft carrying migrant children who were waiting on tarmacs to be deported to their home country of Guatemala. The judge sided with the children’s lawyers, who said the government was violating the law and putting their clients in danger.From tarmacs in Texas to a courthouse in Washington, the astonishing drama unfolded over the course of one holiday weekend. It marked the most recent conflict over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and the most recent conflict between the administration’s enforcement actions and the legal protections Congress established for vulnerable migrants.Judge received a call at 2:30 AMThe judge claimed that she was woken up at 2:30 in the morning to respond to the children’s attorneys’ urgent filing, in which they bolded the fact that flights might be departing in the next two to four hours. According to her, Sooknanan tried to acquire answers from government attorneys for hours.At the midday hearing, Sooknanan stated, “It is surprising that the government is trying to remove unaccompanied minors from the country in the early hours of the morning on a holiday weekend.” She went on to say, “If the courts hadn’t taken action, all of those children would have been sent back to Guatemala, possibly to very dangerous situations.” Five charter buses arrived at a plane at Valley International Airport, a deportation flight hub in Harlingen, Texas, minutes after her hurriedly planned hearing. Authorities had escorted scores of people, possibly as many as fifty, toward the aircraft in a section designated for government aircraft just hours before. The passengers were dressed in colorful attire, which is customary in government-run shelters for children of migrants.“I do not want there to be any ambiguity,” stated U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan. According to the verdict, Guatemalan youngsters who came to the border without their parents or guardians will remain there for at least two weeks while the legal battle is being fought.All 76 of the children aboard the planes should have been moved to shelters supervised by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by the end of Sunday, the Justice Department said in a court filing.Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, wrote a letter on Friday stating that the Trump administration intends to deport about 700 Guatemalan children who entered the country unaccompanied.
