In a dramatic turn of events that unfolded over the Labor Day holiday weekend, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., issued an emergency order halting the Trump administration’s attempt to deport unaccompanied Guatemalan migrant children from the United States, unless they had a formal deportation order. The late-night decision on September 1, 2025, came as government-chartered planes, loaded with dozens of children, were poised to take off from Texas airfields, marking the latest flashpoint in the ongoing battle over U.S. immigration policy and the legal rights of vulnerable minors.
The weekend’s events began with a flurry of urgent legal filings and phone calls in the early hours of Sunday morning. According to CBS News, U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan was awakened at 2:30 a.m. by attorneys representing the children, who warned that deportation flights could depart within hours. The children, ranging in age from 10 to 17, had arrived at the U.S. border without parents or guardians and were being held in facilities overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
By the time Judge Sooknanan convened a hastily scheduled hearing, the government’s deportation effort was already in motion. At Valley International Airport in Harlingen, Texas—a major hub for deportation flights—five charter buses pulled up to a plane where authorities had earlier escorted children clad in the distinctive colored clothing of government-run shelters. At least 76 children were on planes, with 16 returned to HHS shelters by Sunday evening and the rest expected back by 10:30 p.m., according to a Justice Department court filing cited by the Associated Press.
"I do not want there to be any ambiguity," Judge Sooknanan declared during the hearing, making clear her order was to be interpreted strictly. She described the government’s actions as "surprising," noting, "I have the government attempting to remove unaccompanied minors from the country in the wee hours of the morning on a holiday weekend, which is surprising." She added, "Absent action by the courts, all of those children would have been returned to Guatemala, potentially to very dangerous situations."
The legal challenge, filed by a coalition of advocacy groups and attorneys, argued that the Trump administration was bypassing critical protections established by Congress for unaccompanied minors. Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, children who cross the border without parents or guardians—and who are not from Mexico—are entitled to see an immigration judge and apply for humanitarian relief before being deported. Many of the Guatemalan children at risk of deportation had pending asylum claims or other legal avenues for relief.
Advocates for the children painted a harrowing picture of what deportation could mean. In court documents, several children described lives marked by fear, abuse, and abandonment in Guatemala. A 10-year-old said, "I do not have any family in Guatemala that can take good care of me." A 16-year-old recounted, "If I am sent back, I believe I will be in danger," referencing threats against their life in their home country. Another 16-year-old, an honors student living in New York, wrote that she was "deeply afraid of being deported."
Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, which represents the children, condemned the government’s actions. "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," Matos said after the hearing, as reported by the Associated Press.
The Trump administration, for its part, argued that the deportations were being carried out at the request of the Guatemalan government and the children’s relatives, citing concerns that minors would soon age out of juvenile facilities and be transferred to adult detention centers. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller stated on X (formerly Twitter) that the Guatemalan government had formally requested the children’s return. The Guatemalan government confirmed it had proposed the transfer during a July visit by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, but emphasized it was prepared to receive the minors only after due process was completed in the U.S.
However, attorneys for the children disputed the administration’s narrative. They pointed to cases where families in Guatemala had not requested reunification and insisted that, regardless of intent, U.S. law required a proper legal process. Efrén C. Olivares, one of the plaintiff attorneys, described a case where a 16-year-old girl’s parents received an unexpected call announcing her imminent deportation.
The scale of the administration’s plan was significant. According to a letter from Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, the Trump administration intended to deport nearly 700 Guatemalan unaccompanied children as of early September 2025. The urgency of the situation was not lost on immigrant advocacy groups, who had begun hearing reports weeks earlier that Homeland Security Investigations agents were interviewing Guatemalan children in Office of Refugee Resettlement facilities, asking about their relatives back home.
As the legal drama played out in Washington, families in Guatemala City waited anxiously at an air base for word of their children’s fate. Gilberto López, who drove through the night from a remote town, told the Associated Press his 17-year-old nephew had called at midnight to say he was being deported from Texas. The boy, detained about a month ago, had left Guatemala at age 15 to work in the U.S.
The judge’s temporary restraining order, which blocks deportations of unaccompanied Guatemalan children without a formal order for 14 days, is an "extraordinary" measure, Sooknanan acknowledged, but one she deemed necessary given the government’s decision to "execute a plan to remove these children" during a holiday weekend. The order allows the children to remain in the U.S. while their legal cases continue to unfold.
The episode highlights the complex and often fraught intersection of immigration enforcement and child welfare in the United States. As of early September 2025, roughly 2,000 migrant children remained in HHS custody, living in shelters or foster homes until they turn 18 or can be placed with a suitable sponsor, usually a family member. The Trump administration has made several efforts to tighten rules around sponsorship and has directed agents to conduct "welfare checks" on children released from custody, a move it says is in response to concerns about missing minors.
Neha Desai, an attorney with the National Center for Youth Law, summed up the views of many advocates: "This is both unlawful and profoundly inhumane." With the court’s intervention, at least for now, dozens of children will not be sent back into uncertainty and possible danger—though the legal and political battles over their fate are far from over.
As the dust settles from this weekend’s extraordinary events, the fate of hundreds of vulnerable children hangs in the balance, with the courts once again at the center of America’s immigration debate.
