Trump Push to Deport Guatemalan Kids Blocked by Federal Judge

President Donald Trump can’t immediately deport Guatemalan children while they litigate their legal claims to stay in the US, a federal judge ruled.

The group of unaccompanied children are entitled to a preliminary injunction that stops the administration from deporting them, and to certification of a narrowed proposed class, said Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the US District Court for the District of Columbia in a Thursday opinion.

The children were “roused from their beds in the middle of the night” just before midnight Saturday of Labor Day weekend, Aug. 30, and driven to an airport, where some were loaded onto planes, said Kelly. Their lawyers, made aware of the “hasty operation” while it was unfolding, filed the lawsuit seeking emergency relief that Sunday at 1 a.m.

The case is L.G.M.L. v. Noem, 2025 BL 334280, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-02942, 9/18/25.