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A federal judge on Thursday temporarily prevented the Trump administration from hastily deporting hundreds of Guatemalan children, faulting the government for relying on false pretexts that “crumbled like a house of cards” when presented in court.
In a striking opinion, Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee, wrote that the government had misleadingly presented its actions as a “reunification” effort, bringing children back to their parents in Guatemala who it said had requested their return.
But he noted that a series of revelations since the children had been “roused from their beds in the middle of the night and driven to an airport” during the Labor Day weekend had cast doubt on the government’s representations, suggesting a rushed attempt to remove as many as 327 minors before their lawyers could mount a response. The children came to the United States as unaccompanied minors and have been housed under the supervision of the government in shelters or with families in foster care.
“There is no evidence before the court that the parents of these children sought their return,” he wrote.
[...]
[Judge Kelly] wrote that the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act allows children to be sent back to their home country only after a strenuous determination that it is in their best interest. He added that the law was designed to prevent child trafficking, and the rushed attempted removal of the children appeared to stretch the law’s intended use.
“While defendants plunged ahead in the middle of the night with their ‘reunification’ plan and then represented to a judge that a parent or guardian had requested each child’s return, that turned out not to be true,” he wrote.
Trump's goons are using kids as props for their tough-on-immigration TV show while his government lawyers happily lie for him in court.
