The Trump administration backed off claims Wednesday that hundreds of Guatemalan children it attempted to send to the country last month — before a judge blocked the abrupt weekend deportations — had been requested to return by their parents.
A Justice Department attorney acknowledged that the government’s earlier claims had no factual basis and in fact had been contradicted by a review by the Guatemalan government. That review indicated that parents for most of the children could not be located, and those who were largely suggested they wanted their children to remain in the United States for economic opportunities.
The reversal is significant. Last week, White House officials and Trump allies hammered U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, for blocking the deportations — just hours after hundreds of children awakened in the middle of the night had been rushed onto waiting airplanes — accusing her of seeking to block children from reunifying with their families.
Their attacks were rooted in representations made by senior Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign at a hastily scheduled hearing on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. Ensign decried the lawsuit seeking to block transfers of the children and told Sooknanan that the children were being sent back to Guatemala at the request of their families.
“It’s outrageous that the plaintiffs are trying to interfere with these reunifications,” Ensign said at the Aug. 31 hearing. “All of these children have parents or guardians in Guatemala who have requested their return.”
However, the report from Guatemala’s attorney general — filed with the court this week by lawyers representing the children — said none of the families who could be found actually sought the return of their kids. About half the families contacted “expressed annoyance when this Office went to their residences, rejecting the request to conduct an assessment, sometimes in an intimidating manner.”
Sooknanan ordered a halt to the deportations after immigration advocates claimed the children had been denied due process and a chance for an advocate to challenge their deportation. The case is now in the hands of U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who was assigned to the case after Sooknanan’s initial order.
Kelly, a Trump appointee, is now weighing whether to extend or potentially expand Sooknanan’s order, not only to the Guatemalan children initially targeted for removal but to all unaccompanied immigrant children whom the administration is considering repatriating.
Prior to the government’s concession, Kelly raised questions about the discrepancy between what Ensign told Sooknanan and what the Guatemalan government reported about its interactions with the families.
Ensign was not present for Wednesday’s hearing, instead leaving the argument to Sarah Welch, counsel to the assistant attorney general for Justice’s Civil Division.
Welch said the administration’s initial claim that parents had requested their children’s return should be considered “withdrawn.” She also lamented the government’s rushed effort to rouse the children from bed and deport them overnight on a holiday weekend.
“It was unfortunate that the children were frightened and pulled out in the middle of the night,” Welch said.
A Justice Department spokesperson referred a request for comment to the State Department, which did not immediately respond to a query.
It’s not the first time that Ensign’s representations to the court have been called into question.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg questioned Ensign’s accuracy during urgent proceedings related to President Donald Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act in March to hurriedly deport Venezuelan nationals he deemed part of a transnational gang. And U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis questioned Ensign’s lack of substantive information about the whereabouts of deported Salvadoran man Kilmar Abrego Garcia amid legal efforts to return him to the United States.
