Court Stops Trump’s Mass Deportation of Guatemalan Children - A Ruling Against Cynicism and Lies

A single judge in Washington on Thursday made a decision that can determine the lives and deaths of children - and at the same time cast a glaring light on the methods of the Trump administration. Timothy J. Kelly, federal judge at the U.S. District Court, abruptly blocked the government’s attempt to put hundreds of Guatemalan children on planes overnight and send them back to Central America. It is a ruling with double weight. Because Kelly, himself appointed by Trump, declared unequivocally that the government’s official justification had collapsed like a house of cards. The claim that parents had wanted their children returned was not supported by evidence, but also refuted by research. “There is no evidence before the Court that the parents of these children sought their return,” Kelly wrote - a rare and sharp exposure of an executive that has long since grown accustomed to bending facts until they fit its own calculation.

See also: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/wieder-ein-kleiner-erfolg-gericht-stoppt-abschiebung-von-guatemaltekischen-kindern/ +++ https://kaizen-blog.org/en/recherchen-ueberfuehrten-regierung-der-luege-entscheidung-ueber-kinderabschiebung-faellt-morgen/

The background of this emergency ruling is as shocking as it is revealing. On Labor Day weekend the government, in a nighttime action, instructed shelters and foster families to have Guatemalan children ready for deportation within hours. ICE contractors drove them to the airport, a total of 76 minors in Texas even boarded planes to Guatemala. This was planned as a “first phase” - altogether 327 children were on the deportation list, from an originally even larger number of 457. The images of that night stand for an administration that treats even the weakest not as people in need of protection but as numbers in a political staging. That this plan was stopped at all was largely due to the intervention of children’s rights lawyers, who took the information at hand directly, and without asking for a fee, as a reason to go to court. They pointed out that the children had in many cases fled violence, abuse and existential hardship and that the government, with its actions, was undermining fundamental protection mechanisms of U.S. law. Previously another federal judge had issued a two-week temporary restraining order against deportation, which was about to expire. Kelly’s newly issued preliminary injunction now gives the children unlimited protection for the time being - even though the government still has the path of appeal open.

What is remarkable is that the judge at the same time refused to extend protection to children of other nationalities, even though reports were already circulating that Honduran minors were also being targeted. Kelly, however, made it clear that such deportations would also be unlawful if carried out without proper procedure. It is this mixture of judicial restraint and clear warning that shows how thin the ice has become on which the Trump administration is moving. The official argument from Washington looks in retrospect like a mixture of panic and political calculation. Sometimes it was said that families were to be reunified, sometimes that the government was acting on behalf of the Guatemalan authorities, who were concerned about children soon turning 18 and then possibly being sent to adult detention facilities. But all these explanations seemed like hastily added pretexts. The truth is simpler - and darker: they wanted to set an example, no matter the cost.

The children in question are part of the regular procedure: those who cross the southern border alone are first placed in facilities of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The minors remain there until a sponsor is found, usually relatives. This system is far from perfect, but at least it guarantees that no child simply disappears into limbo. The government’s night-and-fog operation aimed precisely to undermine this protection. The ruling by Judge Kelly is therefore more than a legal formality. It is a rare stop signal in an America where the politics of the Trump administration increasingly cross red lines. It is a reminder that even in the shadow of a restrictive agenda principles still apply - and that the dignity of children is not negotiable. That it took a court ruling for this is a scandal in itself. That this ruling now saves lives, at least for the time being, is a glimmer of hope in a time when humanity is systematically declared incidental.