Az federal judge continues to block Trump admin from sending 69 kids to Guatemala & Honduras

A federal judge extended a temporary restraining order, blocking federal officials from removing dozens of Guatemalan and Honduran children in shelters or foster care from the U.S., following a short hearing Thursday morning.

Over the Labor Day weekend, Trump administration officials attempted to remove nearly 700 children across the nation—including 69 children in Arizona—but civil rights groups scrambled in the middle of the night and won temporary reprieves from a trio of federal judges.

This included U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Marquez, who extended her restraining order through Sept. 26 after an hour-long hearing Thursday in Tucson.

Two organizations, including the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Right—a Chicago-based advocacy group—successfully challenged the move in suit filed in Washington D.C., while Arizona-based Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project filed their own challenge on behalf of the 53 children in the state.

They later expanded this to 69 children after it became clear Trump administration officials were also sending kids to Honduras.

In Arizona, officials with the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a
division of the Department of Health and Human Services, began
collecting the children around 9:45 p.m. on Saturday—waking them up at
shelters and foster home—and loading them onto vans headed for El Paso,
where a plane was scheduled to leave the U.S. at 10:45 a.m. on Sunday
for Guatemala and Honduras.

“The fact that the government sought to implement this plan under the darkness of night, in the wee hours of the morning, over a holiday weekend suggests that they intended to minimize the ability of children to obtain legal support in protection of their rights,” said Roxanna Avila-Cimpeanu, Florence Project deputy director, in a social media post on Sept. 1. “The government was attempting to violate the law, bypass due process, and forcibly return children to the dangers they fled—in some cases to life-threatening harm.”

Laura Belous, an attorney for the Florence Project, told Marquez in court on Thursday morning the government’s “whole scheme” to send the kids to their home countries is “entirely illegal” based on a series of laws and strictures passed by Congress to protect unaccompanied children—or kids who arrive in the U.S. without parents or legal guardians.

She argued the government ignored those laws, and attempted a “separate parallel and unaccountable process” to remove the kids. Without a restraining order, and a broader preliminary injunction, Trump administration officials may attempt to remove the kids again, she said.

Belous said the government should blocked from engaging in a similar effort, telling Marquez the effort was “arbitrary and capricious” and was illegal under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act — a 2000 law that has been reauthorized multiple times — which says the federal government “must ensure” children coming to the U.S. without parents or guardians have “meaningful access to legal representation.”

She added the government’s arguments they had the authority was illegal and “opens a new can of worms against TVRPA.” This also requires attorneys at the Florence Project to “put out fires with a 2-hour notice in the middle of the night.”

She added this impacts the organization’s mission and “impacts our ability to get our work done.” She noted many of the children were “jolted awake in the middle of the night.” The first notice was at 9:45 p.m., and attorneys advocated for their clients until 3 a.m. on Sunday.

The Florence Project said last week the move to repatriate the children comes in “direct violation of the children’s rights to seek protection in the United States.”

“This attempt by the Trump administration to send these Guatemalan children back to Guatemala against their wishes and without an appropriate court order is another escalation of the government’s egregious attacks on unaccompanied immigrant children,” Avila-Cimpeanu said in a published statement. 

“We are acting on behalf of 53 children who have all expressed to our legal team that they do not want to return to Guatemala. To repatriate them against their wishes before they are able to speak with an Immigration Judge is blatantly illegal, in direct violation of their rights, and puts children in danger of harm, including trafficking,” she said.

Among their clients is a 12-year-old girl who suffers from chronic kidney disease and relies on dialysis to stay alive, the group said.

“Her illness is severe enough that she will require a kidney transplant,” they wrote, adding she has already been federal custody under ORR.

ORR has released around 23,976 children to parents or sponsors in
2025, according to federal data. A year earlier, the agency released
99,326 children.

Under federal law, ORR is required to “feed,
shelter, and provide medical care” for unaccompanied children until “it
is able to release them to safe settings with sponsors (usually family
members), while they await immigration proceedings.”

Sponsors must
pass a background check, “ensure” the child’s attends immigration
proceedings and report to ICE for removal from the United States “if an
immigration judge issues a removal order or voluntary departure order,”
according to the agency’s website.

Another 10-year-old boy said he didn’t want to leave the U.S., Belous said.

Denise Faulk, a lawyer with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona, defended the government’s position by telling Marquez the government did not attempt to remove 327 kids. She also drew a legal difference between removal—which has legal consequences attached—telling the court the federal government was repatriating the kids. 

While reports said the government was attempting to remove as many as 700 kids, only 327 kids were eligible for repatriation, Faulk said, and many kids did not fit a criteria created by ORR and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Among the criteria, Faulk said the kids on the list do not have parents or legal guardian in U.S., they have not told authorities they fear returning home, and their attorney on record has not protested.

Faulk added the kids protected by Florence were not among the kids facing removals. Of the 53 kids in Arizona who were listed, only 24 met these criteria.

“Who’s making this decision?” Marquez asked. Faulk referred to a document submitted Thursday morning as part of this case by ORR Interim Director Angie Salazar. While several early documents are available on PACER—the federal court’s document database—the latest court filings are under seal because the case involves children.

Faulk said the information was collected by a “bunch of people’ including ICE officials and ORR. Marquez then asked when U.S. officials notified attorney. “The notice went out in the middle of the night,” Marquez said. “When most of these attorneys are sleeping?”

Faulk hesitated and Marquez pushed harder, asking if Salazar would “think a lawyer might need a little more notice?”

Marquez said federal officials gave shelters and foster homes a two-hour notice in “the middle of the night” and “under the cover of darkness” to argue for their clients. She also criticized the government’s failure. 

“We already a system in place that does all this,” she said. “I don’t understand why we didn’t go through this process.”

A former immigration attorney, Marquez repeatedly pushed at Faulk’s arguments and asked whether parents knew their children were returning. 

“I don’t see any coordination with at least one parent,” she said. Faulk said U.S. officials at a “high-level” coordinated with Guatemalan government and “made assurances to U.S. government.”

Belous noted that included in the Washington D.C. case, a report from Guatemalan officials said they visited homes for about 115 children through August, and of those 50 parents said they would welcome their children, but did not request their return through officials.

Another 59 parents, or legal guardians rejected the attempted visits, and said their children had a chance to stay in the U.S. and were not willing to accept an assessment to see if the kids could be returned home. Some refused to tell officials there whereabouts, Guatemalan officials said.

In 4 cases, the families told Guatemalan officials the children were released and were living with sponsors in the U.S., and in two cases, the kids were already living with their parents. 

Marquez said she had “good cause” to extend her restraining order.  

“At this junction find plaintiff show likelihood of success,” Marquez said,  adding “removal will deprive” the children of their rights under the law. “The balance of hardships tip sharply in their favor.”

Marquez blocked the government from repatriating the kids under Florence Project’s purview, but did allow officials to remove children who asked to be sent home as well as kids who had final orders of removal.

‘Immediate action’

Florence Project staffers said they learned of the deportations from reporting by the New York Times and CNN on Aug. 29, and began receiving calls from families who said they were told their children would be removed over the Labor Day weekend.

Based on the rumors, Florence Project attorneys “began immediate action,” meeting with the 53 children through the Labor Day weekend. In their suit, the group said the attempt to remove the kids could hinder their “mission of providing high-quality legal services to as many unaccompanied children as possible.”

“Many of the children have hearings before the immigration court, and representation will be hindered, if not impossible, if they are removed from the country,” the group said.

In several cases, the children who moved through Feldman’s courtroom in mid-August had hearing scheduled in November and December for a chance to claim asylum.

As the deportation loomed, one attorney told ICE officials the removals would “contravene the law,” but ICE officials did not respond, Florence Project staff said.

Following the suit, Marquez issued a temporary restraining order, writing doing so was “appropriate as the evidence creates serious questions” whether Trump administration officials are “attempting to remove” the children in violation of federal law, including TVRPA.

“Because removal would deprive Plaintiff Children of their rights to the removal process, they have alleged that it is probable that they would suffer irreparable harm absent a stay,” Marquez wrote, adding attorney have shown a “substantial case on the merits.”

She later amended her order after she learned that “some of the children may have been in the process of being removed.”

“To avoid any confusion,” she wrote, the government had to confirm ICE officials didn’t remove any of the children, and if any were in the process of removal “they must be returned to the United States and the status quo ante immediately.”

Marquez gave federal officials until Monday to respond, and scheduled a hearing on Thursday, Sept. 11.

Marquez joined U.S. District Judges Jia Cobb and Sparkle Sooknanan blocking the attempt to remove the kids, including halting one flight that had at least 10 children on board, the Arizona Mirror reported.

Carlos Ramíro Martínez, Guatemala’s foreign minister, told the New York Times the removals were part of an agreement made this summer when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited the country in July. 

‘Escalation of attacks’

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) criticized the move after receiving “deeply disturbing” reports from whistleblowers that the Office of Refugee and Resettlement had finalized plans to remove the children.

“This move threatens to separate children from their families, lawyers, and support systems, to thrust them back into the very conditions they are seeking refuge from, and to disappear vulnerable children beyond the reach of American law and oversight,”said Wyden in a letter to ORR Interim Director Salazar.

Wyden, a Democrat who serves on the Senate’s Finance Committee, has repeatedly criticized immigration authorities. He said unaccompanied children “often flee from abuse and violence in their home countries before arriving alone at America’s borders,” and said ORR has “the legal responsibility to ensure that these children are cared for and reunify them with their family in a timely manner.” 

However, he said the Trump administration has “quickly turned ORR into an immigration enforcement arm that repeatedly uses unaccompanied children as bait to draw out undocumented family members for detainment.”

The escalation of attacks on unaccompanied children have led to serious harm, including prolonged separation from their families and even an increase in hopelessness and suicidal thoughts,” he said. 

“The administration’s decision to forcibly remove children from this country is outrageous and would undoubtedly result in serious violations of human rights, American law, and our shared responsibility to safeguard the welfare of these extremely vulnerable children,” Wyden said. “The world watched in horror as the first Trump administration ripped children from their families and held them in inhumane conditions.” 

“It appears this administration is eager to go even farther,” Wyden said.