A federal judge Thursday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from repatriating Central American migrant children who entered the United States as unaccompanied minors.
U.S. District Judge Rosemary Marquez, appointed to the bench in Arizona by the Obama administration, has paused the Trump administration’s efforts to remove certain Guatemalan and Honduran migrant children back to their home countries, according to the AP. Marquez’s ruling was an extension of a previous order she gave over the Labor Day weekend which blocked the removal of Guatemalan children.
“Judge Rosemary Marquez is blocking flights to *reunify* Guatemalan and Honduran children with their families,” Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Now these children have to go back to shelters. This is disgusting and immoral.”
The Honduran and Guatemalan children are living in shelters or foster care after entering the U.S. as unaccompanied minors, which are migrant children who appear at the border without a parent or guardian. The Trump administration has previously argued that it’s in the best interest of the children to reunite them with their families back in their home countries.
The lawsuit was originally brought on by the Arizona-based Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, which had sued on behalf of 53 Guatemalan children in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement who allegedly claim they do not want to return to their home country. The advocacy group later amended their lawsuit to include 12 Honduran children and another four Guatemalan child plaintiffs.
“It is truly astounding that the government is moving forward with this plan after they tried to do the same thing to children from Guatemala in the dead of night over Labor Day Weekend,” Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu, Florence Project Deputy Director, said in a previous public statement. “Right now, in Arizona and nationwide, there are temporary restraining orders in place blocking the government from effectuating this type of unlawful removals.”
Marquez is not the only Democrat-appointed federal judge to block the Trump administration’s attempt to send unaccompanied Central American children back to their home countries.
On Aug. 31, U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, appointed to the bench by the Biden administration in the District of Columbia, temporarily blocked federal officials from deporting unaccompanied Guatemalan children, issuing a 14-day temporary restraining order. The Trump administration argued it was conducting repatriations in lieu of formal deportations, claiming the Guatemalan government and relatives had requested family reunifications.
The debate over how to deal with the mass arrival of unaccompanied alien children (UACs) has challenged multiple administrations over the years.
Tens of thousands of UACs arrived during the Obama administration, and many others came during the immigration crisis that waged during the Biden era. In August 2024, a DHS Office of Inspector General report outlined how the federal government lost track of tens of thousands of migrant children living across the U.S. The issue of their plight was further highlighted when several UACs were discovered during an immigration enforcement raid at a marijuana farm in July, prompting GOP inquiry.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include comment from DHS.
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