Overview

• U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan issued a 14‑day restraining order blocking the removal of at least 10 named Guatemalan unaccompanied minors and ordered that they be taken off planes and returned to Office of Refugee Resettlement custody.
• Sooknanan said her order applies broadly to Guatemalan children who arrived without parents, as government lawyers framed the returns as voluntary reunifications and advocates disputed that characterization in several cases.
• Advocates and a letter from Sen. Ron Wyden reported plans to repatriate roughly 600 to 700 Guatemalan minors, with flights prepared from Harlingen and El Paso as emergency filings were lodged in multiple courts.
• In a separate case, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb temporarily blocked the administration’s expanded use of expedited removal in the U.S. interior for people unable to prove two years of continuous presence, finding current procedures deny adequate due process.
• Cobb’s opinion, issued in a suit brought by the ACLU on behalf of Make The Road New York, left longstanding border‑area use intact but halted the January expansion, with further litigation and likely appeals expected.