This cowardly and despicable attempt to snatch migrant kids from their beds and deport them in the middle of the night would’ve succeeded if it hadn’t been for the quick actions of legal advocates and the courts
The Trump administration’s failed attempt to kidnap dozens of Guatemalan children from their beds and deport them – without due process, in the middle of night during the long Labor Day weekend, and unbeknownst to many of their parents back in Central America – is one of its most despicable attacks on kids yet. And if it hadn’t been for the heroic actions of their advocates and a swift intervention from a judge who was on duty for emergency claims, the government likely would’ve succeeded in sending many of these kids back to danger.
Court documents, first-person accounts, and news reports paint a terrifying picture of the late-night hours that preceded the emergency court ruling, including one of weeping children being woken from their sleep and begging to not be returned to Guatemala, where indigenous communities continue to face state-sponsored repression and criminalization.
In a devastating court document, Lauren Fisher Flores, legal director of the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR), a legal advocacy organization that represents children who arrive to the U.S. without their parents, said that ProBAR staff members “witnessed children who had been pulled out of their beds” at shelters they rushed to in the middle of the night. They were “confused” and “scared.” One child was so terrified that she vomited:
“At Hands of Healing Los Fresnos, one young girl was extremely distraught, crying and repeatedly saying that she could not go back to Guatemala. At New Hope McAllen, one young girl was so scared that she vomited and asked to speak with a clinician. At Urban Strategies Alamo, one young teenager was scared that he might end up murdered like one of his family members. At Compass Connection in Harlingen, an attorney was able to meet with only one child … ProBAR’s client and named Plaintiff ARMD was at Compass Connection, but he was transported to a plane without notifying me as his attorney of record.
“None of these children’s parents in their home country had requested their return,” Fisher Flores noted. While the administration initially stated that families had made the request, a memo from the Guatemalan government debunked this claim and revealed that parents of dozens of children were caught completely off-guard by the flights. “One parent told officials that if her daughter was returned, she ‘would do everything possible to get her out of the country again because she had received death threats and could not live in Guatemala,’ according to the memo,” ABC News reported.
ProBAR said that it had first heard on the evening of Friday, August 29 that South Texas facilities contracted by Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement to shelter unaccompanied children were preparing to deport nearly 70 kids, and began to urgently contact them on their legal rights. The next day, August 30, ProBAR began to contact shelter directors to inform them of the rights afforded to these kids, including procedures passed by Congress to protect them from any potential exploitation.
“These protections essentially exempt many unaccompanied children from speedy deportation—called ‘expedited removal’—and ensure that they have their day in court,” Anna Bower reports at Lawfare. “But none of that seemed to matter on Labor Day weekend.”
🚨NEW: Declarations filed in the lawsuit against the rushed attempt to deport 600 Guatemalan children reveals the chaotic way the Trump admin carried out the operation.Children were taken out of bed after midnight to be rushed onto planes. One girl "was so scared she vomited."
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) 2025-09-03T17:37:48.331Z
Other declarations directly refute the Trump admin's claims that the children's parents requested their return to Guatemala.One dad in Guatemala says he got "a strange call" two weeks ago saying that his daughter was about to be deported — despite never having asked for that.
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) 2025-09-03T17:41:44.233Z
One 17-year-old describes what happened to him on Sunday night. He says he was woken up at 2:00 in the morning and told to get his things. He was scared, so he prayed to God and hoped he'd be protected. Throughout the fateful morning, no one told him what was happening.
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) 2025-09-03T17:47:45.730Z
The night of August 30, shelters informed “ProBAR that they had been told to prepare children to be repatriated and that transport would arrive to pick them up in two hours,” Fisher Flores said. ProBAR, already short-staffed due to federal funding cuts, scrambled to get on the scene in the middle of the night.
In Arizona, legal advocates also relayed an effort by the administration to purge vulnerable children in secrecy. “Under the cover of night, our clients were woken up and told to pack their things, as private transportation contractors came to unlawfully remove them from shelters,” Florence Project Deputy Director Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu said in an email received by America’s Voice. She called it “one of the biggest challenges” that she could recall during her nearly ten-years at Florence Project.
“The contractors made the rounds to shelters across the state, and in some cases our team was only notified of their presence after they had already arrived at the shelters, and only because of our constant communication with local ORR shelter staff,” Avila-Cimpeanu wrote. “Because the government never communicated anything directly to us or our clients, our Children’s Program staff called and emailed everyone who might be able to share information and help and even went to shelters in person to advocate for our clients.”
“This gross abuse was only halted by the quick action of Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, who was on duty for emergency claims at the US District Court of the District of Columbia” and handled the urgent class action lawsuit filed by the National Immigration Law Center, Liz Dye reported at the Public Notice newsletter. That lawsuit initially sought to protect a small group of children but would soon expand to cover all Guatemalan kids targeted by the administration.
“By 4am Sunday [morning], Judge Sooknanan issued an ex parte order forbidding the government from deporting the 10 named minor plaintiffs and scheduling a hearing for 3pm to consider the rest of the potential class,” Dye reported. “After lawyers notified the court that children were already being loaded onto planes in Texas, the judge moved the hearing up to 12:30pm and issued a preliminary class certification barring deportation of any Guatemalan children covered by the TVPRA.”
Fisher Flores noted in her declaration that when she rushed to the airport to prevent the unlawful removal of her clients, she was mocked:
“I could see two of the ICE transport planes parked on the tarmac. The stairs had already been pulled away and the door to the plane, which I had been informed had the children on board, was already closed. I went to the building at the tarmac. I could see officers inside. I knocked on the door. I told the young man who answered the door that I was an attorney, that I had clients on the plane, and that I had a court order stopping the plane from leaving. I asked to speak to his supervisor. I gave the same message to every person who badged in the locked door. I told them they were all complicit in violating a federal court order if the plane left. The young man came back out and told me that he had advised his supervisor who was trying to contact ICE. I explained again the federal court order and the importance of stopping the plane. Another agent came out and physically pulled the young man back into the building. I could see the other staff members through the glass. They were jeering and laughing. I repeated that they were all complicit in the violation of the judge’s order.”
Judge Sooknanan, knowing exactly the kind of administration she was dealing with, worked expertly to ensure that every single one of these kids was off the deportation flights and had the rights and dignity afforded to them under our laws.
“Inside 36 hours, she issued a temporary restraining order, held a hearing, certified the affected children as a class so that none of them could be removed from the country, and demanded five status reports from the government,” Dye reported. “She didn’t let go until the Justice Department confirmed in writing that every single one of the children had been deplaned and transferred from the custody of the Department of Homeland Security to the care of Health and Human Services.”
he Administration’s attempt to deport hundreds of children alone last week, sent a horrible message that children are not a priority. At the Young Center, we reject that message!Protecting immigrant children & advocating for their rights and best interests is the foundation of everything we do.
— Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights (@theyoungcenter.bsky.social) 2025-09-05T19:39:51.177Z
“The court’s order blocking these removals will remain in place until September 14, while the court considers a request by plaintiffs for more permanent relief,” said the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. While these children have avoided deportation for now, we should not make the mistake of thinking that they also totally avoided the consequences of an experience as distressing as a deportation. “Guatemalan migrant children say they remain ‘traumatized’ and ‘depressed’” after they were targeted, NBC News reports.
“In the documents, the teens describe fearing gang recruitment in their home country as well as violence from relatives, criminal organizations and even the Guatemalan government,” NBC News said. “A.J.D.E.’s declaration said he still feels ‘totally traumatized. … I don’t even know how to explain it.” NPR reports that one minor who identifies as LGBTQ expressed fear over the possibility of being sexually violated or forced into marriage. “If I had to return to Guatemala, I would kill myself,” the child said.
Some of the ugliest acts from Trump’s first term were directed at some of the most vulnerable among us, including the cruel and traumatic family separation policy at the southern border. Trump, along with mass deportation architect-in-chief Stephen Miller, resurrected this war on children after returning to power in January, including seeking to end funding for the same kind of legal representation that helped these children avoid unjust deportation over the Labor Day weekend. This war is only escalating – and getting uglier, under funding passed by complicit members of Congrees.
“What makes this case stand out in the most egregious ways is that our government in the dead of night ordered the shelters to wake these children up between 2:00 and 4:00 in the morning to put them on buses so that they could be transported to Texas, the airport, loaded on planes and deported to Guatemala without making sure that these kids avail themselves of the legal protections and the constitutional rights that they have,” Kica Matos, President of the National Immigration Law Center, told PBS NewsHour.
“Now, understand, none of these kids had received a final deportation order,” Matos continued. “These are kids whose cases are going through the system. And our government decided that they were going to simply yank away these legal and constitutional protections and send them to Guatemala. The youngest kid that we spoke with is 7 years old. These are all unaccompanied children, who are particularly vulnerable. That is what makes this case so outrageous.”
