WASHINGTON — A federal judge Thursday barred the Trump administration from deporting unaccompanied children to Guatemala, finding that the administration’s claim of reuniting the children with their parents there “crumbled like a house of cards.”

District of Columbia Judge Timothy Kelly issued a preliminary injunction to extend last month’s temporary block to prevent the rapid removal of hundreds of Guatemalan children, who were woken in the middle of the night and rushed onto deportation planes over Labor Day weekend.

Kelly, whom President Donald Trump appointed in 2017, rejected the Trump administration’s argument that the move was to reunite the children at the request of their parents, a claim that Department of Justice attorneys walked back during last week’s hearing.

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