The Department of Justice (DOJ) walked back on a claim that the parents of the Guatemalan children targeted for deportation over Labor Day weekend wanted their kids to come back home.
The development comes after lawyers representing the children produced a report by the Guatemalan attorney general's office. The report included interviews with 115 parents who refuted the DOJ's claim.
Deportation of Guatemalan Children
Government lawyers conceded in federal court in Washington that they had no evidence to support the claim that the children or their families wanted to reunite in Guatemala. This is something that senior Trump administration officials have repeatedly claimed as true last week.
The Wednesday hearing involves a case that initially focused on more than 600 Guatemalan children who entered the United States alone, without a parent or a guardian. The current government planned to quietly and quickly repatriate dozens of the kids on flights over the Labor Day weekend, according to the New York Times.
The issue developed into an emergency hearing on Aug. 31, to stop the planes, with lawyers representing the kids telling Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan that many of them feared for their safety in their home country. They added that the children were doing everything they could to stay in the U.S.
The layers argued that many of the kids in question were boarded onto planes despite them having pending immigration proceedings. The process was also done without allowing them to challenge the repatriation.
During a separate hearing, Efren Olivares of the National Immigration Law Center argued that the Trump administration showed it cannot be trusted not to act without a court order in place. He noted that removal itself would result in irreparable harm to any plaintiff, the Court House News reported.
Against the Families' Wills
Following the judge's order blocking the Trump administration's attempts to deport the unaccompanied children, Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo responded. He criticized the ruling while committing to fighting to bring the kids home under a pilot program he proposed to his American counterpart.
After hearing arguments, Judge Sooknanan issued a temporary restraining order barring government officials from sending a group of 10 migrant kids between the ages of 10 to 17 to their home country of Guatemala.
The judge later arranged a hearing on Sunday, where he expanded the order to cover all unaccompanied children said to be at risk of deportation. Sookananan's order will be in place for 14 days, as per BBC.
