Judge bars US from deporting Guatemalan children, for now
An American judge at least temporarily blocked the government on Sunday to deport a group of Guatemalteques children who had crossed the border without their family, after their lawyers declared that young people had been loaded on planes during the night and in violation of laws offering protections for migrant children.
Lawyers of 10 Guatemah minors, aged 10 to 17, said in court documents deposited on Saturday evening that there were information that planes had to take off in a few hours for the country of Central America. But a federal judge in Washington said that these children could not be expelled for at least 14 days, and after a planned hearing in a hurry on Sunday, she applied that they had to be withdrawn from the planes and return to the refugee resettlement facilities while the legal process takes place.
“I do not want there to be an ambiguity,” said judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, who said that his decision applies largely to the Guatemah minors who arrived in the United States without their parents or tutors.
Government lawyers, on the other hand, argued that children were not expelled but rather gathered at the request of their parents or tutors – an affirmation that children of children dispute, at least in some cases.
Similar emergency requests have also been filed in other parts of the country. The lawyers of Arizona and Illinois asked the federal judges to block the deportations of unaccompanied minors, stressing how the fight against government efforts quickly spread.
Alarm ringtates raised among the defenders of immigrants
The episode has raised alarms among the defenders of immigrants, who say that this can represent a violation of federal laws designed to protect children who arrive without their parents. Although the deportations are pending for the moment, the case highlights the confrontation with high issues between the efforts to apply government immigration and the legal guarantees created by the congress for some of the most vulnerable migrants.
At the airport in the border region in Harlingen, Texas, the scene on Sunday morning was undoubtedly active. Buses carrying migrants drawn on the tarmac while clusters of federal agents quickly moved between vehicles and pending planes. Police cars surrounded the perimeter, and the officers and the security guards pushed journalists from the chain connecting fences that line the land. On the track, the planes were seated with the motors in slow motion, the crews on the ground making final preparations as if the departures could arrive at any time – all while the battle of the courtroom took place hundreds of kilometers in Washington.
Shaina Aber of Acacia Center for Justice, a legal defense of immigrants, said that he was informed on Saturday evening that an official list had been written with the names of the Guatemah children that the US administration would try to return to their country of origin. The defenders learned that the flights would start from the cities of Texas of Harlingen and El Paso, said Ms. Aber.
She said that she had heard that federal immigration officials and customs application “still took children”, having not obtained advice on the court order.
The Ministry of Internal Security, Immigration and Customs Application and the Ministry of Health and Social Services did not immediately respond to requests for comments on Sunday.
The Trump administration plans to withdraw nearly 700 Guatemahs children
The Trump administration plans to withdraw nearly 700 Guatemalteque children who came to the United States unaccompanied, according to a letter sent on Friday by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. The Guatemalan government said it was ready to welcome them.
This is another step in radical efforts to apply the Trump administration’s immigration, which include plans to send a wave of officers to Chicago for immigration repression, increase deportations and put an end to the protections for people who have had permission to live and work in the United States.
Guatémalteque children’s lawyers said the US government did not have the power to withdraw young people and deprived them of regular procedure by preventing them from pursuing asylum claims or immigration reparation. Many have active cases before the immigration courts, according to the legal file of lawyers in Washington.
Although children are supposed to be under care and care of the Resettlement of Refugees, the government “illegally transfers them to immigration and customs to put them on the flights to Guatemala, where they can face abuse, negligence, persecution or torture”, argues the Immigration Center for Immigration.
A lawyer for another defenders’ defense group, the National Center for Youth Law, said the organization was starting to hear a few weeks ago from legal service providers that internal security investigation agents question children – in particular Guatemala – in the Resetting Resettleover Bureau. HSI is ICE’s investigation arm.
The agents questioned the children about their relatives in Guatemala, said lawyer Becky Wolozin.
Friday, defenders of the country began to know that the hearings of the immigration court of their young customers were canceled, said Wolozin.
Migrant children traveling without their parents or tutors are given to the refugee resettlement office when they are met by officials along the American-Mexican border. Once in the United States, children often live in shelters supervised by the government or with families with foster family until they can be released to a sponsor – generally a family member – living in the country.
Minors can request asylum, juvenile immigration status or visas for victims of sexual exploitation.
Due to their age and often traumatic experiences going to the United States, their treatment is one of the most sensitive problems of immigration. The advocacy groups have already continued to ask the courts to stop new procedures for verifying the Trump administration for unaccompanied children, saying that changes maintain separate families longer and are inhuman.
Guatemala says that it is ready to receive unaccompanied minors
Guatemalan Minister for Foreign Affairs Carlos Martínez, said on Friday that the government had declared in the United States that it was willing to receive hundreds of Guatemah minors who have arrived in the United States unaccompanied and who are detained in government facilities.
Guatemala is particularly concerned about minors who could pass age limits for children’s facilities and be sent to adult detention centers, he said.
President Bernardo Arévalo said his government had a moral and legal obligation to defend the children. His comments came a few days after the Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem went to Guatemala.
This story was reported by the Associated Press. Rebecca Santana reported Washington. The writers of the Associated Press Jennifer Peltz in New York and Corey Williams in Detroit contributed.
