Biden Judge Blocks 700 Migrant Children From Reunification With Families

Biden-appointed federal judge, Sparkle Sooknanan, halted the Trump administration’s plan to deport hundreds of illegal alien children over the Labor Day weekend after advocacy groups petitioned the courts, raging that the administration had orchestrated a mass deportation in the dark of night.

The high-stakes lawsuit, which is popularly known as LGML v. Noem, was filed early Sunday morning around 1 a.m. and claims that the Trump administration had flouted a critical 2008 law focused on aggressively protecting children against premature extraction.

Judge Sooknanan put out an emergency order to prevent the program from moving forward; a program which the administration claimed was an exercise in humanitarianism to reunite nearly 700 innocent children with their waiting guardians or parents in Guatemala.

Before her gavel came down, however, the wheels of the operation had already begun turning: charter buses, filled with young travelers, had rolled up to planes in Harlingen and El Paso, where some of the children waited aboard, ready for a flight into the unknown.

In a charged courtroom debate, Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign vigorously defended the administration, proclaiming, “These are not removals under the statute. These are repatriations. All of these children have parents or guardians in Guatemala who have requested their return.”

Advocacy groups roundly rejected Ensign’s explanation with the National Immigration Law Center’s Efrén Olivares providing a scathing denunciation, saying, “It is a very dark and perilous time when our government stoops to deporting defenseless, orphaned 10-year-olds.”

The Trump administration maintains that the flights were lawful, deliberately planned reunifications with the Guatemalan government, as a matter of profound moral and legal duty, while advocacy groups indignantly maintain these vulnerable children are being unjustly rushed out without critical hearings or an opportunity to pursue asylum.

The foreign minister of Guatemala confirmed the nation’s agreement to accept the children, as President Bernardo Arévalo solemnly vowed it a “profound moral and legal obligation.”

Under normal circumstances, children who land illegally in America are humanely transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) custody while their immigration cases are prepared. Such children, and particularly many Guatemalan children, ultimately seek asylum to remain in America.

So whilst the legal battle continues, these children will remain within the U.S. until there is resolution within the courts.

Thank you for your support.

If you appreciate the work we do to spread the good news of Jesus Christ, please consider giving a gift to help us continue this work. Maranatha!