In a dramatic turn of events over the Labor Day weekend, federal judges across the United States issued a series of emergency orders halting the Trump administration’s efforts to deport hundreds of unaccompanied Guatemalan children. The legal battles, playing out simultaneously in Washington, D.C., Arizona, and Illinois, have thrown a spotlight on the fraught intersection between U.S. immigration enforcement and the legal protections afforded to vulnerable minors.
At the heart of the unfolding crisis was a pre-dawn emergency hearing in Washington, D.C., where District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan—herself an immigrant born in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago—was awakened at 2:35 a.m. on September 1, 2025, to consider an urgent motion filed by the National Immigration Law Center. According to Reuters, the motion sought to block the removal of ten Guatemalan children, aged 10 to 17, who had already been loaded onto planes at airports in Texas, with one plane possibly having taken off before being ordered to return. Sooknanan wasted no time, issuing a 14-day temporary restraining order that halted not only the immediate deportations but also expanded protections to cover any Guatemalan unaccompanied minors in U.S. Department of Health and Human Services custody.
"I do not want there to be any ambiguity," Sooknanan declared from the bench, as reported by the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian. Her order meant that dozens of children, some still on the tarmac in Harlingen and El Paso, Texas, were to be removed from the planes and returned to government shelters. The Justice Department, in a court filing, confirmed that all 76 children who had been prepared for deportation were being returned to shelters overseen by the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
The urgency of the situation was palpable. Minutes after Sooknanan’s ruling, five charter buses rolled up to a plane at Valley International Airport in Harlingen, Texas, where children dressed in the distinctive clothing of government-run shelters were escorted away from the aircraft. As the Associated Press noted, the episode played out in the dead of night over a holiday weekend, drawing global attention and prompting immediate reactions from advocacy groups and government officials alike.
"This idea that on a long weekend in the dead of night they would wake up these vulnerable children and put them on a plane irrespective of the constitutional protections that they had is something that should shock the conscience of all Americans," said Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, which represents many of the affected children.
Meanwhile, in Arizona, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Marquez issued her own order temporarily blocking the removal of 53 Guatemalan children, aged three to seventeen, living in shelters across Phoenix and Tucson. The Arizona Republic reported that the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, which provides legal services for unaccompanied minors, had filed suit on behalf of the children, arguing that their clients feared returning to Guatemala and that the government was bypassing the legal process required by federal law. Marquez’s order extended the children’s stay in the U.S. for at least two weeks, pending further legal proceedings.
Legal challenges also unfolded in Illinois, where a judge blocked the removal of four minor children until at least September 3, 2025, with a hearing scheduled for that day. Across all three jurisdictions, the core issue was the Trump administration’s attempt to expedite the deportation of unaccompanied Guatemalan minors—some as young as three—without the full legal process mandated by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. This federal law requires that unaccompanied children be placed in the "least restrictive setting possible" and that only an immigration judge can decide whether a minor can voluntarily depart the U.S.
The administration defended its actions by arguing that it was acting at the request of the Guatemalan government to reunite children with their families. Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign told the court that "all of the children’s parents or guardians in Guatemala had requested their return via the Guatemalan government." However, attorneys for the children and advocacy groups disputed this characterization, insisting that many of the children feared returning home and that proper legal procedures were being ignored.
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo, speaking at a news conference in early September, confirmed that his government had been coordinating with U.S. authorities to repatriate unaccompanied minors who wished to return voluntarily. He emphasized that Guatemala was willing to receive "all unaccompanied minors, who wanted to return to Guatemala voluntarily" and that the government could accommodate about 150 minors per week. "It depends on our capacity to identify relatives to facilitate a safe return," Arévalo explained, adding that the goal was to prevent children from being institutionalized.
Still, the precise number of children at risk of deportation remained unclear. The head of Guatemala’s immigration service had put the number at 341 in July, while whistleblower accounts cited by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon suggested the figure could be as high as 700. On the day of the emergency court hearings, the U.S. government reported that 76 children had been on planes to Guatemala before being returned to custody under judicial orders.
The legal complaints filed by the National Immigration Law Center and the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights argued that the government’s actions constituted a "clear violation of the unambiguous protections that Congress has provided them as vulnerable children." The filings highlighted the risks faced by some of the children if returned to Guatemala, including abuse, neglect, persecution, or even torture. Among the plaintiffs was a 10-year-old indigenous Guatemalan girl who had lost her mother and suffered abuse from caretakers, underscoring the stakes of the ongoing legal fight.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, a key architect of the administration’s immigration policies, criticized Judge Sooknanan’s decision. "The minors have all self-reported that their parents are back home in Guatemala," Miller wrote on X (formerly Twitter). "But a Democrat judge is refusing to let them reunify with their parents." The Department of Homeland Security and the Guatemalan foreign ministry declined to comment on the rulings.
As the legal battles continue, the fate of hundreds of unaccompanied Guatemalan children in U.S. custody hangs in the balance. For now, the courts have stepped in to ensure that the protections enshrined in federal law are not bypassed in the rush to enforce immigration policy. The coming weeks will determine whether these children will be allowed to remain in the U.S. while their cases are heard, or whether they will be sent back to uncertain futures in their home country.
In the end, the flurry of late-night court orders and the scenes of children being removed from planes serve as a stark reminder of the complexities—and the human cost—of America’s ongoing immigration debate.
