Guatemalan migrants deported from the United States pass in front of the commercial flight chartered by ICE to return them to Guatemala on Feb. 18, 2025.

A federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump's administration cannot deport back to Guatemala more than 600 unaccompanied migrant children who have active immigration cases.

U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee, ruled that their deportation likely violates the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), a law enacted in 2008 to address concerns about unaccompanied migrant children in government custody. Kelly stated that the administration's arguments for deporting the children, including that their parents had requested their return, "crumbled like a house of cards about a week later."

"There is no evidence before the Court that the parents of these children sought their return," Kelly wrote in his 43-page order. "And none of those that were located had asked for their children to come back to Guatemala."

Kelly pointed to a report prepared by Guatemala's Solicitor General's office, which stated that officials could not track down parents for most of the children and that the ones who were successfully located had not requested their return.

The Guatemalan document was first reported by Reuters on Sept. 3.

Late-night holiday deportation

The Trump administration attempted to deport 76 unaccompanied minors on Sunday, Aug. 31. The administration argued that the Central American nation and their families had requested the children be returned.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said the late-night deportation effort marked another attempt to deny due process to migrants.

"What Judge Kelly's decision makes clear is that what the Trump administration was doing was illegal and their justifications were false," Reichlin-Melnick said. "This was not about reuniting children and parents. This was about deportation. This is yet another case where the Trump administration was engaged in extraordinary behavior in an effort to avoid judicial review."

The children are between 10 and 17 years old, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement-chartered planes were blocked from departing by U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle Sooknanan after she received an emergency request filed by the National Immigration Law Center to stop the deportations.

The planes sat on the tarmacs in El Paso and Harlingen, Texas, for hours as the judge considered the case and then ruled the administration could not deport the children. The children were taken off the plane an hour after the ruling and returned to the protection of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The El Paso Times, part of the USA TODAY Network, was present as the children disembarked from the GlobalX plane.

Who is considered an 'unaccompanied minor'

Migrant children who arrive at the United States-Mexico border without a parent or guardian are classified as unaccompanied, according to federal law. They are then taken to federal government-run shelters where they wait until they can be placed with a family member or in a foster home.

An immigration expert in Guatemala celebrated the court's decision.

"I believe it was the correct action based on national and international legislation to stop the deportation of unaccompanied migrant children, because it violates the principle of priority for the child," Ursula Róldan, an immigration researcher at Guatemala's Rafael Landivar University, said. "These children have no protection in their country of origin … I believe the law should prevail, as well as the principles of human rights at the international level."

Jeff Abbott covers the border for the El Paso Times and can be reached at:jdabbott@gannett.com; @palabrasdeabajo on Twitter or @palabrasdeabajo.bsky.social on Bluesky.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Federal judge bars Trump administration from deporting migrant children to Guatemala

Reporting by Jeff Abbott, USA TODAY NETWORK / El Paso Times

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect