'Unconscionable': ICE Deported 33 Unaccompanied Guatemalan Children After Judge Ordered Halt to Prac [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Published on
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
by Common Dreams

'Unconscionable': ICE Deported 33 Unaccompanied Guatemalan Children After Judge Ordered Halt to Practice
"It is not out of the power of the district court, if someone could raise the matter, to order ICE to return the children that it removed on that flight," said one legal expert.

by Brett Wilkins, staff writer

The Trump administration last week deported dozens of Guatemalan children who unlawfully entered the United States without their parents, just minutes after a federal judge ordered a stop to such expulsions, BuzzFeed News revealed on Tuesday.

Last Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan issued a preliminary injunction against a Trump administration directive ordering the deportation of unaccompanied minors under the guise of public health. However, minutes after the injunction's issuance, 33 Guatemalan minors aboard a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) flight departed from an unspecified American airport bound for Guatemala City.

Link to tweet

An ICE official acknowledged to BuzzFeed News that the deportation flight left "shortly before ICE was informed of the court's injunction," and that agency officials were unaware of the court order until after the plane landed in Guatemala. However, one immigration expert said that does not mean ICE could not—or should not—bring the expelled minors back to the U.S.

"It is unconscionable that [ICE officials] are leaving the kids there and that they did not immediately bring them back," Sarah Pierce, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told BuzzFeed News, adding that "the expulsion is not only putting kids on the plane and taking off, it is also placing them in another country."

More:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/25/unconscionable-ice-deported-33-unaccompanied-guatemalan-children-after-judge-ordered

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https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016278166