A federal judge has temporarily blocked flights carrying more than 600 Guatemalan children back to their home country, after attorneys for the minors argued the Trump administration was acting outside established immigration law. According to the Los Angeles Times, Judge Sparkle Sooknanan issued the order in the early hours of Sunday morning following emergency filings that warned deportations were imminent.
“I do not want there to be any ambiguity,” Sooknanan said during the hearing, underscoring that her ruling applied broadly to unaccompanied Guatemalan minors in U.S. custody.
The children, many of whom had already been transported to airports in Texas, will remain in the U.S. while the case proceeds. Officials with the Department of Homeland Security maintain that the effort is a reunification program requested by the Guatemalan government, but advocates for the minors disputed that account. Lawyers with the National Immigration Law Center told NBC News that several of the children face abuse, abandonment or health concerns in Guatemala, and that expedited transfers bypass protections Congress set for asylum-seeking minors.
The episode follows a similar court battle earlier this year, when a federal judge attempted to halt flights carrying Venezuelan migrants, only to have the aircraft depart before the ruling could take effect. In the current case, Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign confirmed one flight may have briefly taken off before returning.
As reported by POLITICO, families gathered at La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City Sunday awaiting word, while in Washington, Sooknanan emphasized the unusual timing of the operation.
“I have the government attempting to remove minor children from the country in the wee hours of the morning on a holiday weekend,” she said.
The administration’s broader plan, according to a letter cited by multiple outlets, involves repatriating nearly 700 Guatemalan minors in the weeks ahead.
What’s this legal-political fight got to do with aviation?
I saw the word “flight” somewhere in there. That’s as close as I can come to finding any applicable information. It’s part of the flat spin that this column has been taking since the new regime has been in control.
The fact that that an airplane was to serve as the mode of transportation does not make this an aviation story.
To the editor… why are you publishing this stuff?! The only relation to this audience is that an aircraft was involved. Are you next going to write about any cargo flight delay for say paperwork issues!?
Or that a tug would not start.
There are time where maybe you will need to do some work and write interesting articles about say the history of a given make of aircraft.
The development of unmanned airi refueling for the U.S. navy
Something that takes a little work vs cut and paste of some useless details of some thing tha only tangentially applied to aviation
Thank you Matt for the non- aviation. Important, but not on these pages. Please tell your bosses that I am officially canceling my subscription.
Good riddance, get rid of all illegals. Kids grow up to be terrorists all over the world.