A US judge has halted the Trump administration from deporting a group of 10 migrant Guatemalan children who had already boarded planes in Texas after their lawyers made a pre-dawn emergency appeal during a holiday weekend.
District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan issued a temporary restraining order from Washington DC blocking the removal of the children, aged 10-17, for 14 days.
The order was expanded to include any Guatemalan unaccompanied minors in the custody of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
The complaint said this group could number hundreds of children.
Why are migrant children being targeted for deportation?
President Donald Trump launched an immigration crackdown after returning to the White House in January, including an effort to track down and deport unaccompanied migrant children.
Migrant children who arrive at US borders without a parent or guardian are classified as unaccompanied.
They are sent to government-run shelters until they can be placed with a family member or foster home, a process outlined in federal law.
Many of those from Guatemala request asylum or pursue other legal avenues to seek permission to stay.
Part of Mr Trump's election pitch last year was the "largest deportation operation in US history".
His administration struck an agreement with Guatemala that would allow unaccompanied children to be sent back to the country and planned to start deportations last weekend, one current and two former US officials told Reuters.
The government is planning to remove nearly 700 Guatemalan children who came to the US unaccompanied, according to a letter sent last Friday by Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat.
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo said in July that his government was working with the US to repatriate unaccompanied children.
What is known about the children?
The 10 plaintiffs, aged 10-17, include a 10-year-old indigenous Guatemalan girl whose mother had died and who had suffered abuse and neglect from other caretakers, the complaint said.
The girl was detained at a US government shelter in South Texas, the complaint said.
The children have been in shelters or foster care in California, Texas, Pennsylvania and New York.
Why are the children potentially at risk if they return to Guatemala?
In their complaint on Sunday, the National Immigration Law Center and Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights said the deportations would be a "clear violation of the unambiguous protections that Congress has provided them as vulnerable children".
Guatemala has high rates of poverty and inequality with the World Bank reporting that in 2024, 57.3 per cent of Guatemalans were living in poverty, with an average income of $US6.85 ($10.50) per day.
Australian travel advice says to exercise a high degree of caution in Guatemala due to the threat of violent crime.
Lawyers for the children said that, in Guatemala, they "may face abuse, neglect, persecution, or even torture, against their best interests".
Several of the 10 plaintiffs had expressed fear of returning to Guatemala, the complaint said.
One 16-year-old girl said her parents, in Guatemala, had received a strange phone call a few weeks ago saying the US was deporting her, lawyer Efrén C Olivares said.
The girl, who has been living in a New York shelter, said in a court filing that she is an honours student about to start 11th grade, loves living in the US and is "deeply afraid of being deported".
Other children — identified only by their initials — said in court documents that they had been neglected, abandoned, physically threatened or abused in their home country.
"I do not have any family in Guatemala that can take good care of me," a 10-year-old said in a court filing.
A 16-year-old said there had been "threats against my life" in Guatemala.
"If I am sent back, I believe I will be in danger," the teenager added.
What is the Trump administration saying?
A government lawyer confirmed that the children who it had planned to fly to Guatemala had been taken off the planes and were being returned to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, criticised Justice Sooknanan for blocking the deportations.
"The minors have all self-reported that their parents are back home in Guatemala," Miller wrote on X. "But a Democrat judge is refusing to let them reunify with their parents."
Why have these planes been halted?
In March, there was a weekend showdown over the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelans to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
In that case, the judge appeared in civilian clothes for a Saturday night hearing and tried to block the flights. But they went ahead, with the government saying the court order came too late.
In last weekend's case minutes after Justice Sooknanan's hearing, five charter buses pulled up to a plane at Valley International Airport in Harlingen, Texas, a hub for deportation flights.
Hours earlier, authorities had walked dozens of passengers toward the plane in an area restricted to government aircraft.
Justice Sooknanan said she was awakened at 2.30am to address the emergency filing from the children's lawyers, who wrote in bold type that flights might be leaving within the next two-to-four hours.
During the emergency hearing on Sunday, the judge pressed the Department of Justice for assurances that Guatemalan children had not aleady been deported.
Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign said no children had been removed but that some had been loaded onto aircraft.
Ensign said he believed one plane may have taken off but later returned under the judge's order and that the children would be moved back to shelters.
Justice Sooknanan spent hours trying to reach federal attorneys and get answers, she said.
"I have the government attempting to remove unaccompanied minors from the country in the wee hours of the morning on a holiday weekend, which is surprising," she said at the hearing.
"Absent action by the courts, all of those children would have been returned to Guatemala, potentially to very dangerous situations."
While the ruling stopped children being deported, adult migrants were still sent back to Guatemala.
What happens next?
Sunday's court hearing came in a case filed in federal court in Washington, but similar legal actions were enforced elsewhere.
In a lawsuit in Arizona, the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project said one of its clients is a 12-year-old asylum-seeker who has chronic kidney disease, needs dialysis to stay alive and will need a kidney transplant.
Two other plaintiffs, a 10-year-old boy and his 3-year-old sister don't have family in Guatemala and don't want to return, according to the group.
Guatemalan children who arrived at the border without their parents or guardians will stay for at least two weeks while the legal fight unfolds, according to the ruling.
"I do not want there to be any ambiguity," Judge Sparkle Sooknanan said.
