A federal judge in San Diego ordered the Trump administration to return three families deported to Honduras, finding the government’s removals violated terms of a legal settlement tied to the 2018 border policy that separated parents from their children, according to the court order.
Judge Dana Sabraw issued the order on Thursday, directing the federal government to bring the families back after concluding their deportations in recent months depended on coercive conduct and misrepresentations, including reliance on “lies, deception and coercion.” Sabraw said the deported families should have been permitted to remain in the United States under the settlement’s terms, which include humanitarian parole for each mother until 2027.
Sabraw also rejected the government’s position that one family left the United States voluntarily. In court, one woman described being required to check in with immigration authorities repeatedly after being told she needed to do so, and she said that process contributed to losing her job.
The order describes how, in July, one woman and her three children were deported to Honduras after she said she was ordered to check in with ICE at least 11 times over two months. The woman, whose court filings and testimony were described in the AP account, also included a statement about what happened when ICE came to her home and asked her to sign a document agreeing to leave.
“This did not make any difference to these officers. They took me and my children to a motel and removed my ankle monitor. They detained us for three days and then removed us to Honduras,” the woman said in court documents, as summarized in the AP report.
The judge found similarities among the other two families, which were identified in court documents only by their initials. Sabraw wrote that each of the removals was unlawful, and he said that absent the removals, these families “would still be in the United States and have access to the benefits and resources they are entitled to.”
Sabraw’s order also required the administration to cover the return travel costs for the families, according to the AP report. The judge did not limit the relief to a legal declaration, instead ordering the government action to reverse the deportations.
Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who represents the families, welcomed the decision and said the administration had not acknowledged the illegality or “gratuitous cruelty” of the original family-separation policy, while also restarting deportations that, he said, would again separate families.
“The Trump administration has never acknowledged the illegality or gratuitous cruelty of the initial family separation policy and now has started re-deporting and re-separating these same families. The Court put its foot down and not only ordered the families return but did so at government expense,” Gelernt said, according to the AP account.
The AP report said the Homeland Security and Justice departments did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Friday. The settlement and the judge’s order relate to the Trump administration’s 2018 use of a “zero-tolerance” approach in which parents were separated from children to be criminally prosecuted after crossing the border illegally.
Sabraw had previously ordered an end to the separations in June 2018, and the settlement he referenced prohibits such a policy until 2031, according to the AP report.