Left: Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem addresses a gathering at the Nashville International Airport on Thursday, July 17, 2025, in Nashville, Tennessee (AP Photo/George Walker IV). Right inset: U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan during court proceedings (U.S. District Court).
An extraordinary face-off over Labor Day weekend saw many Guatemalan minors—separated from their parents or guardians—successfully appealing to a federal judge to halt pending deportations by the Trump administration. By Monday, the Department of Justice confirmed compliance with the temporary restraining order (TRO) that accompanied the judge’s decision.
This rapid court activity, reminiscent yet different from the weekend events in March during the high-profile Alien Enemies Act (AEA) case J.G.G. v. Donald Trump, took place in the early morning hours—eliciting a distinct government response.
The court record for L.G.M.L. et al. v. Kristi Noem reveals much of the details. The complaint was lodged just after midnight on Sunday, as confirmed by U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, who noted in a brief order that it was filed at 1:02 a.m. Sooknanan issued a TRO by 4:22 a.m. and convened a hearing for 3 p.m. later the same day.
Judge Sooknanan cited “urgent circumstances” to justify her decision, highlighting claims that the government planned to deport 10 minors aged 10 to 17 to Guatemala, with potentially “hundreds” more at risk, which the lead plaintiffs described as an “immediate threat of illegal removal from the United States,” referencing planes rumored to be ready for departure waiting on the runway.
Sooknanan’s order directed the government to refrain from deporting any individual Plaintiffs for 14 days unless further court directives were issued. This was extended to cover “putative class” members, including “all Guatemalan unaccompanied minors in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement [ORR] as of 1:02 AM on August 31, 2025, who are not under a finalized order of removal.”
Lawfare’s Anna Bower chronicled, in detail, what was said at the ensuing hearing, which the judge began by telling DOJ attorney Drew Ensign to make sure that the powers that be at the Department of Homeland Security were aware that, in addition to the initial plaintiffs, potential deportations of class action members in the lawsuit were blocked.
Bower recounted that Ensign told Sooknanan the “Government of Guatemala has requested the return of these children, and all of these children have their parents or guardians in Guatemala who are requesting their return[.]”
The judge noted that the plaintiffs’ National Immigration Law Center attorney before her said, on the contrary, that certain minors feared returning to Guatemala, that their parents had not sought their return, and that Congress in any event has “created a special statutory scheme to ensure that unaccompanied minors receive enhanced protection and care whenever the government seeks to remove them from the United States.”
Sooknanan: I have counsel telling me that there are children whose parents did not request their return to Guatemala. I have declaration representations contrary to what you’re telling me. How does that [factual discrepancy] get resolved?
— Anna Bower (@annabower.bsky.social) August 31, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Sooknanan, hearing that the government would need until Friday to file a brief on these issues of disputed fact, barred the apparently imminent deportations until she can issue a ruling.
Judge Sooknanan: And I tried to reach the government. I have been up since then..and didn’t reach anyone from the government until later this morning. And the imminence that the plaintiff claimed proved true, because, in fact, those planes *were* loaded. One actually took off and was returned.
— Anna Bower (@annabower.bsky.social) August 31, 2025 at 2:12 PM
The docket shows that, although the government initially missed a 4 p.m. deadline to file a report Sunday confirming that the deportations had not been carried out — with Sooknanan ordering the DOJ “show cause why a status report was not filed by that deadline” — Ensign explained he didn’t know about the deadline because “Defendants had not yet entered an appearance” in the case.
At the same time, the government confirmed that “all of the class members that were on planes today have been deplaned and are in the process of being returned to ORR custody.”
Then, on Monday, the government said it was “not aware of any other putative class members that have not been returned to ORR custody.”
A reported total of 76 migrants were on the planes originally set to go to Guatemala.
The upshot of the DOJ’s compliance and halting of deportations is that it means avoiding being bogged down for months by anything from whistleblower testimony to contempt proceedings to appellate proceedings about the contempt issue, and beyond.
Sooknanan’s court bio notes that she once clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and worked in the DOJ’s civil rights division as a principal deputy assistant attorney general. She is still in her first year as a federal judge, after she was nominated to the position by President Joe Biden and narrowly confirmed in December 2024.
