A federal judge has temporarily halted the deportation of a group of Guatemalan children who crossed the border without family accompaniment. This decision comes in response to claims from legal representatives who argue that the government may be planning deportations in violation of legal protections for migrant children, with a hearing scheduled for Sunday.

Lawyers representing ten Guatemalan youth aged 10 to 17 reported in court documents filed late Saturday that flights were seemingly set to depart imminently for their home country. However, the judge in Washington has ordered that these children cannot be deported for at least 14 days unless she issues a different ruling, with a virtual hearing planned for Sunday afternoon.

Similar emergency actions have been submitted in different states, including Arizona and Illinois, asking court officials to prevent the deportation of unaccompanied minors, highlighting how rapidly this legal confrontation has unfolded.

Alarm bells raised among immigrant advocates

Immigrant advocates are alarmed, suggesting that these deportations might breach federal statutes meant to protect minor migrants who arrive unattended by adults. Although the deportations are temporarily paused, the situation highlights the intense conflict between government immigration practices and the congressional safeguards meant for vulnerable migrant children.

The activity at the border-side airport on Sunday was unmistakable. Buses with migrants drove onto the tarmac, surrounded by clusters of federal agents moving hastily between vehicles and planes. Law enforcement and security personnel restricted media access, pushing reporters back from the perimeter fences. Meanwhile, planes with engines running underwent last-minute preparations, ready to take off at short notice as the legal battle continued in Washington.

According to Shaina Aber from the Acacia Center for Justice, an organization providing legal aid to immigrants, they were informed Saturday night that a formal list was prepared, detailing the Guatemalan children whom the U.S. authorities planned to deport. Aber noted that advocates discovered the planned flight departures from Harlingen and El Paso in Texas.

She said she’d heard that federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials “were still taking the children,” having not gotten any guidance about the court order.

The Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

Trump administration plans to remove nearly 700 Guatemalan children

The Trump administration is planning to remove nearly 700 Guatemalan children who came to the U.S. unaccompanied, according to a letter sent Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon. The Guatemalan government has said it is ready to take them in.

It is another step in the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration enforcement efforts, which include plans to send a surge of officers to Chicago for an immigration crackdown, ramping up deportations and ending protections for people who have had permission to live and work in the United States.

Lawyers for the Guatemalan children said the U.S. government doesn’t have the authority to remove the youngsters and is depriving them of due process by preventing them from pursuing asylum claims or immigration relief. Many have active cases in immigration courts, according to the attorneys’ court filing in Washington.

Although the children are supposed to be in the care and custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the government is “illegally transferring them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody to put them on flights to Guatemala, where they may face abuse, neglect, persecution, or torture,” argues the filing by attorneys with the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights and the National Immigration Law Center.

An attorney with another advocacy group, the National Center for Youth Law, said the organization starting hearing a few weeks ago from legal service providers that Homeland Security Investigations agents were interviewing children — particularly from Guatemala — in Office of Refugee Resettlement facilities. HSI is ICE’s investigative arm.

The agents asked the children about their relatives in Guatemala, said the attorney, Becky Wolozin.

Then, on Friday, advocates across the country began getting word that their young clients’ immigration court hearings were being canceled, Wolozin said.

Migrant children traveling without their parents or guardians are handed over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement when they are encountered by officials along the U.S.-Mexico border. Once in the U.S., the children often live in government-supervised shelters or with foster care families until they can be released to a sponsor — usually a family member — living in the country.

The minors can request asylum, juvenile immigration status or visas for victims of sexual exploitation.

Due to their age and often traumatic experiences getting to the U.S., their treatment is one of the most sensitive issues in immigration. vocacy groups already have sued to ask courts to halt new Trump administration vetting procedures for unaccompanied children, saying the changes are keeping families separated longer and are inhumane.

Guatemala says it is willing to receive the unaccompanied minors

Guatemalan Foreign Affairs Minister Carlos Martínez said Friday that the government has told the U.S. it is willing to receive hundreds of Guatemalan minors who arrived in the U.S. unaccompanied and are being held in government facilities.

Guatemala is particularly concerned about minors who could pass age limits for the children’s facilities and be sent to adult detention centers, he said.

President Bernardo Arévalo has said that his government has a moral and legal obligation to advocate for the children. His comments came days after U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Guatemala.