A sign is displayed outside of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services headquarters at the Hubert H. Humphrey Building on June 2, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Kevin Carter/Getty Images)
The migrants' legal team is now seeking a longer-term injunction to replace Judge Sparkle Sooknanan's emergency order over the holiday weekend blocking the deportations for up to two weeks. Sooknanan granted the order after learning that more than six dozen of the minors had been transferred from HHS to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody overnight and placed on a plane bound for Guatemala.
The case has drawn attention both because it involves what lawyers say could be about 600 minors at risk of being abruptly removed from the country and because Sooknanan, the judge initially presiding over the case, imposed an immediate restraining order on the Trump administration to halt the removals.
Sooknanan’s order came after a separate judge in D.C. gave a controversial oral order in March to return alleged Tren de Aragua gang members to the United States, which the Trump administration argued was ambiguous and not binding. Seeking to avoid such a dispute, Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, left no room for interpretation.
Sooknanan gave quick, unequivocal orders over Labor Day weekend to deplane the minors and return them to the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement. The judge demanded status updates from the Department of Justice every few hours until the process was complete. The DOJ complied with her orders.
TRUMP DHS SUES ENTIRE BENCH OF FEDERAL JUDGES IN MARYLAND DISTRICT COURT OVER AUTOMATIC INJUNCTIONS
A woman shows a cellphone to a Guatemalan migrant deported from the United States inside a bus after his arrival at the Guatemalan Air Force Base in Guatemala City on August 31, 2025. (JOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
Federal authorities "woke children in the night and subjected them to the trauma of imminent removal," the attorneys wrote in court papers.
"But for this Court's intervention while the plane sat on the tarmac in Texas, those children would have been expelled to Guatemala," they said.
A DOJ lawyer told the judge during the last-minute hearings over the weekend that the Guatemalan government had requested the return of the migrant youths and that "all of these children have their parents or guardians in Guatemala who are requesting their return."
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A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman called the initial temporary restraining order from the judge "disgusting," contending that the DHS was simply aiming to reconnect the young migrants with their parents.
"Judge Sparkle [Sooknanan] is blocking flights to *reunify* Guatemalan children with their families," DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin wrote. "Now these children have to go to shelters. This is disgusting and immoral."
Ashley Oliver is a reporter for Fox News Digital and FOX Business, covering the Justice Department and legal affairs. Email story tips to ashley.oliver@fox.com.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/guatemalan-minors-seek-longer-term-pause-deportations