HARLINGEN, Texas (AP) – Immigrant children are waiting for a tarmac, waiting to be sent to their hometown of Guatemala.
The extraordinary drama unfolded overnight on holiday weekends, arched from Talmax in Texas to the courtroom in Washington. It was the latest showdown against Trump administration’s crackdown. Immigrants – and the latest clash between the administration’s enforcement efforts and the legal safeguards that Congress has created for vulnerable immigrants.
Guatemalan children who arrive at the border without parents or guardians will remain at least two weeks, according to the verdict, while the legal battle unfolds.
Relatives of unaccompanied minors deported from the US are waiting for an update outside of Guatemala’s Laolola International Airport on Sunday, August 31, 2025.
On Sunday, August 31, 2025, four charter buses are pulled to the side of the airport, unloading dozens of passengers on a plane in Harlingen, Texas. (AP Photo/Valerie Gonzalez)
“I don’t want ambiguity,” said US District Judge Sparkle L. Souknanan.
A few minutes after a rushed scheduled hearing, five charter buses were pulled up to planes at Valley International Airport in Harlingen, Texas, and a hub for deportation flights. A few hours ago, authorities were walking dozens of passengers (probably 50) towards planes in areas restricted to government planes. Passengers were dressed in colours that are normally used in government-run shelters for immigrant children.
The Justice Department said in a court filing that all 76 children on the plane were expected to be returned to shelters supervised by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by the end of Sunday.
“The idea that over the long late-night weekends they’ll wake up these vulnerable children and put them on planes regardless of the constitutional protections they had should shock the conscience of all Americans.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling.
The chaotic, rapid development was similar to the showdown on the weekend in March Deporting hundreds of Venezuelans To El Salvador’s biggest security prison. Supporters begged federal judges to halt deportation, which they believed were imminent, but the Trump administration remained silent about the plan.
In that case, the judge appeared in civilian clothes for a Saturday night hearing and tried to block the flight, but they proceeded and said the government had said the court’s order was too late.
The administration claimed that, in response to the Central American state’s demands, Guatemalan children were reuniting with parents or guardians who sought to return. Attorneys for at least some children say it’s not true and in any case, the authorities have yet to follow legal procedures they haven’t done.
One girl said her parents in Guatemala received a strange call a few weeks ago saying the US was banishing her, said Efren C. Olivares, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
The 16-year-old, who lives in a New York shelter, said in a court application that she is an honorary student about to start her 11th grade, loves to live in the United States and is “deeply afraid of being deported.”
Other children identified only by initials said in court documents that they had been ignored, abandoned, physically threatened and abused in their country.
“There are no families in Guatemala who can take care of me,” the 10-year-old said in a court application. The 16-year-old recalls a “threat to my life” in Guatemala.
“I believe if I’m sent back, I’ll be in danger,” the teen added.
The court hearing on Sunday took place in a case filed in federal court in Washington, but similar legal action has also been filed elsewhere.
In a lawsuit in Arizona, the Florence Immigration & Refugee Rights Project said one of its clients is a 12-year-old asylum seeker with chronic kidney disease, which requires dialysis to stay alive and requires a kidney transplant. According to the group, the other two plaintiffs, a 10-year-old boy and his 3-year-old sister, have no family in Guatemala and do not want to go home.
As development took place in the US, families gathered at an air force base in Guatemala, the capital of Guatemala, anticipated flights. Gilberto Lopez said his 17-year-old nephew drove through the night from his remote town after calling in the middle of the night to say he was being deported from Texas.
Gilberto Lopez, a relative of a small minor deported from the US, is waiting for an update outside Guatemala’s La Aurora International Airport on Sunday, August 31, 2025.
The boy left Guatemala two years ago at the age of 15, worked in the United States and was taken into custody about a month ago, Lopez said.
Alert bell for immigrant advocates
Migrant children who arrive in the United States without parents or guardians are routinely handed over to the Department of Health and Human Services Refugee Resettlement Office. They often live in government supervised shelters or live with foster families until they can be released to US sponsors (usually relatives).
Many of them from Guatemala I’m asking for asylum Or pursue other legal measures to obtain a residence permit.
Lawyers for the National Youth Law Center said a few weeks ago that a legal service provider had begun hearing agents in the Homeland Security Investigation interviews with children, particularly Guatemalans, at a facility in the Refugee Resettlement Bureau.
Agents asked the children about their Guatemalan relatives, lawyer Becky Wolrozin said.
Then, on Friday, supporters began to get the words that immigration court hearings for young clients had been cancelled, Wolojin said.
Shaina Aber of the Acacia Justice for Justice for Justice Centre, an immigration law defense group, said she was notified on Saturday evening that authorities had drafted a list of children to return to Guatemala. Supporters learned that flights would depart from Harlingen and El Paso’s Texas cities, Aber said.
A small, unaccompanied miner who has been deported from the US will review a list of people deported outside La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala on Sunday, August 31, 2025.
The government has two planes in Herringen, one in El Paso, Texas, based on witness accounts, one said. Government lawyer Drew Ensign told the judge that one plane might have taken off but it has returned.
Steven Miller, deputy chief of staff at White House, said in X that the Guatemalan government officially called for the return of their children, and that the judge “refuses to reunite with his parents.”
The judge called at 2:30am.
The judge said he woke up at 2:30am and dealt with the emergency filing from his child’s lawyer. Souknanan spent hours trying to get answers to federal lawyers, she said.
“I am trying to remove minors from the country who are not accompanied early in the morning on holiday weekends, which is surprising,” Souknanan added later at the hearing:
That’s the Trump administration Plans to remove approximately 700 children in Guatemala He came to the unaccompanied United States, according to a letter sent Friday by Oregon Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden.
In a statement, the Guatemalan government said that when it visited the country in July it originally proposed to relocate minors to Homeland Security Secretary Christi Noem. Guatemala’s concern was that hundreds of minors would soon age from juvenile facilities, where they would be detained and sent to adult detention centres. He emphasized that he is ready to receive minors when legitimate processes are completed in the US following established protocols.
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Santana reported from Washington to New York to Peltz. Associated Press author Sonia Perez D. Guatemala and Corey Williams of Detroit contributed to the report.
