A United States judge has ordered the administration of President Donald Trump to refrain from deporting Guatemalan unaccompanied migrant children with active immigration cases while a legal challenge plays out.

Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee based in Washington, DC, kept in place on Thursday an earlier judicial block on the policy, sharply criticising the administration’s unproven assertion that the children’s parents wanted them deported.

Trump’s administration attempted to deport 76 Guatemalan minors being held in US custody in a surprise move in the early morning on August 31, sparking a lawsuit and emergency hearing that temporarily halted the move.

Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign initially said that the children’s parents requested they be returned home, but the de

See Full Page