HARLINGEN, Texas (AP) — Laura Pena knew she had two hours to stop the kids representing her return to Guatemala. She and other lawyers and lawyers and advocates across the country were just beginning to get the words on Saturday night on Labor Day weekend, when immigrant children were awake and heading to the airport.
The time of confusion continuedIncludes a desperate call to the judge at 2:36am. A chaotic march weekend Despite the desperate attempts by lawyers and intervention by judges who came to court in civilian clothing on Saturday night, the Trump administration deported hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador’s largest security prison.
This time, the lawyer was able to block the flight for at least two weeks, but the episode raised questions about how true the administration is on its first account.
A Guatemalan government report obtained by the Associated Press from a US-based human rights group says 50 of the 115 families contacted by investigators want their children to stay in the US, claiming the Trump administration wants them to return to Guatemala. Another 59 families did not allow the government team at home, according to the report.
Many questions remain, including a full overview of how old the child is and how many will be deleted that night.
While some responses may appear in court, based on interviews and government documents, the reconstruction of rapid outbreak events reveals the latest clash between the regime’s desire for mass deportation and long-standing legal protections for immigration.
The kids were told to pack their bags
A few weeks of quiet planning led to at least 76 children carrying planes at Harlingen and El Paso’s Texas airports.
Pena, who represents immigrant children in the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project, said three months of farewell and raced to the shelter. While driving, she received a call about other shelter children being loaded onto the bus.
When she arrived, the children were in the lobby carrying their luggage. Including the boy who was “almost a catatonic,” he was terrified of his death if he returned home like a relative, Pena said.
Three teenagers living in the Dallas area with foster parents were notified for four hours, said Jennifer Anzald Valdes, director of children’s legal services on the International Rescue Committee, which represents them. “They all told me how they woke up in the middle of the night and they told me to pack their bags,” she said.
The judge wakes up in the middle of the night
Washington US District Judge Sparkle L. Souknanan was awake at 2:36am at an urgent request. The judge said he left a voicemail for Justice Department attorney at 3:33am in court on Sunday. Ordered to suspend deportation at 4:22am
“I am trying to remove minors from the country who are not accompanied in the morning on holiday weekends, which is surprising,” said Souknanan, who was appointed in President Joe Biden’s final weeks. “Absent from the court’s case, these children would have been returned to Guatemala, where they are potentially in extremely dangerous circumstances.”
Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign said one plane took off but could have returned before the children were deported.
The Trump administration claimed it acted at Guatemala’s request. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller accused the judge of “effectively luring these immigrant children and refusing to return to their parents in their home countries.”
The Guatemalan government report, reports on children’s families raise serious questions about the regime’s version of events.
One family said if her daughter was returned to Guatemala, the report said she would do everything to drive her out because her life was threatened.
Guatemalan children’s advocate Lucrecia Prela, who prepared a report raising questions about the Trump administration’s claims, told the Associated Press that many families suspect her office is pushing for the return of their children.
“We want to be clear that we respect the process that is happening in the United States and not respect it,” she said. “They are Guatemalan children, and our duty is to protect them.”
The children were guided by the plane several hours later by the tarmac and returned to the shelter.
The 2008 law requires that children appear before an immigration judge
Children began to cross borders in large numbers in 2014. Peak at 152,060 For 2022. The July arrest tally will be translated into an annual clip of 5,712 arrests, reflecting how illegal intersections do I’ve fallen to the lowest level 60 years from now.
Guatemalans accounted for 32% of the residents of government-run facilities last year, followed by Honduran, Mexicans and El Salvadorans. The 2008 law requires that children have the opportunity to pursue asylum before an immigration judge, unless they are from Canada and Mexico. The majority are released from shelters to their parents, legal guardians or close relatives, and their cases are winding in court.
It is unknown how many children aboard Harlingen and El Paso’s Texas airports over Labor Day weekend, and how many children along the way were allowed to be in court as required by the 2008 law. Lawyers for many Guatemalan children in the shelter system say there are still positive cases they want to pursue so that they can stay in the US
The Labor Day weekend drama can be traced back to July, when Guatemala immigration director said the government plans to revive 341 children from shelters overseen by the US Department of Health and Human Services. They were approaching 18 years old and Guatemala didn’t want to be transferred to an immigration detention centre for adults.
But the lawyer representing a client in Guatemala said authorities targeted young children young enough to be in primary school on Sunday, and then woke up from shelter or placed them on buses heading to the airport to counter allegations that only people close to aging were targeted.
Valdez of the International Rescue Committee said that several girls, all the teenagers, had been on the bus for hours, never actually went to the airport and was eventually returned to a shelter in South Texas.
The lawyer felt something was heading for the weekend on a holiday.
“We started hearing from legal service providers about strange calls we received from the parents or relatives of Guatemalan children who were told their children would be deported from the United States by Guatemalan officials.”
The children were still in immigration court cases, saying the group runs a network of legal service providers. The Guatemala consulate told lawyers for the children that they called at the request of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, she said.
Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said Friday. Up to 700 Guatemalan children You can send it home. A lawyer who checked the electronic court docket discovered that the dates of future courts had disappeared.
On Sunday at Guatemala Airport, families prepared for the return of their children. Leslie Lima, from San Marcos in western Guatemala, came to see her 17-year-old son Gabriel four months after leaving the house and was taken into custody across the border near El Paso. Lima has been worried about Gabriel since the imminent return of the minor was made public last week.
“We’ll receive him here, but we hope he’ll stay (in the US) and achieve his dream,” she said.
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo said his administration would welcome the US “minors of all accompanists who wanted to voluntarily return to Guatemala” and welcome anyone ordered to leave the US.
The judge’s order blocks deportation of Guatemalan children who have not received a final removal order.
Child advocates and lawyers believe the confusion is not over.
___
Santana reported from Washington and Perez. Reported from Guatemala City. Elliot Spagut was a contribution from San Diego.
