While Guatemalan children sit on asphalt airplanes, judge orders to stay in the United States, for now

Harlingen, Texas (AP) – Since migrant children expected the asphalt to be sent to their native Guatemala, a federal judge on Sunday temporarily blocked the flights, on the side of the lawyers of the children who said that the government was violating the laws and sent their clients to potential danger.

The extraordinary drama took place during the night in a holiday and jumped from asphalt in Texas to a court in Washington. It was the last confrontation about the repression of the Trump administration against immigration, and the last clash between the efforts of application of the administration and the legal safeguards that Congress created for vulnerable migrants.

Guatemalan children who arrived at the border without their parents or guardians will remain for at least two weeks, while the legal fight takes place, according to the ruling.

“I don’t want there to be ambiguity,” said American district judge Sparkle L. Sooknan.

Minutes after their hastily scheduled audience, five Chárter buses stopped at an airplane at Valley International Airport in Harlingen, Texas, a deportation flights center. Hours before, the authorities had walked dozens of passengers, perhaps 50, towards the plane in a restricted area to government aircraft. Passengers wore color typically used in shelters administered by the government for migrant children.

The 76 children in the planes were expected to be returned to the shelters supervised by the Department of Health and Human Services of the United States at the end of Sunday, the Department of Justice said in a judicial presentation.

“This idea that in a long weekend at night would awaken these vulnerable children and put them in an airplane, regardless of the constitutional protections they had, it is something that should surprise the awareness of all Americans,” said Kica Matos, president of the National Imigration Law Center, which represents children, after Sunday’s audience.

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The National Security Department did not immediately respond to a request for comments on the ruling.

The chaotic and rapid developments resembled a March weekend confrontation on the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelans to a maximum security prison in El Salvador. The defenders implored a federal judge to stop the deportations that they believed were imminent, while the Trump administration was silent about their plans.

In that case, the judge appeared in civil clothing for a hearing on Saturday night and tried to block the flights, but continued, and the government said the court order arrived too late.

The Administration insisted that Guatemalan children met, at the request of the Central American Nation, with parents or guardians who sought their return. At least some of the children say that this is not true and argue that, in any case, the authorities would still have to follow a legal process they did not do.

A girl said that her parents, in Guatemala, received a strange phone call a few weeks ago saying that the United States was deporting it, said one of the plaintiff lawyers, Efrén C. Olivares.

The 16 -year -old, who has been living in a refuge in New York, said in a court that presents that she is an honorary student about to start the 11th grade, she loves to live in the United States and has “deeply fearful of being deported.”

Other children, identified only by their initials, said in judicial documents that had been neglected, abandoned, physically threatened or mistreated in their country of origin.

“I don’t have any family in Guatemala who can take care of myself,” said a 10 -year -old boy in a judicial presentation. A 16 -year -old recalled having experienced “threats against my life” in Guatemala.

“If they send me back, I think I will be in danger,” added the adolescent.

The Court Court of Sunday occurred in a case presented in a federal court in Washington, but similar legal actions were also presented elsewhere.

In a lawsuit in Arizona, the Florence and refugee rights and refugees project said that one of its clients is a 12 -year -old asylum seeker who has chronic kidney disease, needs dialysis to stay alive and will need a kidney transplant. According to the group, two other plaintiffs, a 10 -year -old boy and his 3 -year -old sister, do not have a family in Guatemala and do not want to return, according to the group.

As the developments developed in the United States, families met at an air base in the capital of Guatemala, the city of Guatemala, in advance of flights. Gilberto López said he led the night from his remote city after his 17 -year -old nephew called midnight to say he was being deported from Texas.

The boy left Guatemala two years ago, at 15, to work in the United States and was arrested about a month ago, López said.

Moises Castillo through News

Alarm bells for immigrant defenders

The migrant children who arrive at the US. They often live in shelters supervised by the government or with familiar care families until they can be released to a sponsor, usually a relative, in the United States.

Many of Guatemala Request asylum or look for other legal routes to get permission to stay.

A lawyer from the National Youth Law Center said that the organization that began listening to legal service providers a few weeks ago that National Security Investigations agents were interviewing children, particularly Guatemalans, at the facilities of the refugee resettlement office.

The agents asked the children about their relatives in Guatemala, said the lawyer, Becky Wolozin.

Then, on Friday, the defenders began to realize that the hearings of the Immigration Court of their young clients were being canceled, Wolozin said.

Shaina Aber, from the Acacia Justice Center, an immigrant legal defense group, said she was notified on Saturday night that the authorities had written a list of children to return to Guatemala. The defenders learned that the flights would stop Harlingen cities and the passage of Texas, Aber said.

The government had two aircraft in Harlingen and one in El Paso, Texas, said Olivares, based on witness accounts. Government lawyer Drew Design told the judge that a plane could have taken off but that he returned.

The White House Cabinet Deputy Director Stephen Miller said that the Guatemalan government formally requested the return of the children and that the judge was “denying them to let them meet with their parents.”

The judge received a call from 2:30 am

The judge said he was awakened at 2:30 am to address the emergency presentation of children’s lawyers, who wrote in bold that flights could leave within the next two or four hours. Sooknan spent hours trying to communicate with federal lawyers and get answers, he said.

“I have the government that tries to eliminate unaccompanied minors from the country in the early hours of the morning in a festive weekend, which is surprising,” Sooknanan said at the midday audience, and then added: “Absent action of the courts, all those children would have been returned to Guatemala, potentially to very dangerous situations.”

On Sunday night, the Government of Guatemala said in a statement that he had originally proposed the transfer of minors to the Secretary of National Security Kristi Noem during his visit to the country in July. Guatemala’s concern was that hundreds of minors would age outside the youth facilities where they were retained and sent to adult detention centers. He stressed that he was ready to receive the minors when the due process was completed in the USA. After the established protocols.

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Santana reported from Washington and Peltz from New York. News Sonia Pérez D. writers in Guatemala City and Corey Williams in Detroit contributed to this report.