Attorneys seek to halt CBP policy pressuring unaccompanied children to self-deport

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Legal advocates filed a motion on Tuesday seeking to stop U.S. Customs and Border Protection from urging some unaccompanied immigrant children to voluntarily deport themselves under a federal policy introduced last year, according to court filings in McAllen, Texas. The lawyers said CBP has pushed the “self-deportation” option before the children are sent to federal shelters that are meant to provide access to legal and immigration processes. They asked the judge to intervene to halt the policy’s enforcement for Guatemalan minors and to expand an existing injunction to cover children from other countries.

The motion said federal law directs what happens when border agents arrest unaccompanied children. Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, agents are required to send the children to a federal shelter under the Office of Refugee Resettlement, where children can access attorneys and an immigration judge. The filing also said children can speak to their parents over the phone before they agree to return or pursue other options.

The advocates argued that a new approach introduced by CBP changed the timing of the choice by placing the self-deportation option before children reach the Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters. The motion said the policy introduces the option before the shelter phase and that it began in September 2025, based on testimony from CBP officials filed with the lawsuit.

Attorneys said the self-deportation option is accompanied by threats that alter children’s incentives and leverage. They said children who decline to return voluntarily could face detention for long periods, while their adult sponsors living in the U.S. could be arrested and prosecuted, and the sponsors could be barred from applying for visas in the future.

The lawsuit, the lawyers said, asks the court to stop CBP’s conduct because it violates an existing injunction. Attorneys representing the Guatemalan children said a current court order prohibits the government from deporting Guatemalan unaccompanied minors unless they have gone through some immigration court proceeding. The motion also requested that the judge expand the injunction to cover children from other countries, excluding Mexico and Canada.

Some children, the advocates said, told attorneys they were threatened, yelled at and coerced into signing documents they did not fully understand, sometimes due to language barriers. One child described being pressured after a car crash left her injured and after she said she did not receive medical treatment.

“Injured in a car crash, she said she did not know why she was being asked to sign papers,” the motion said in describing a written declaration from the child filed in court. The declaration included the statement: “I thought I had to sign, but I didn’t know why or what for,” the advocates said.

Mishan Wroe, an attorney with the National Center for Youth Law, said the process deprives children of protections federal law provides. “It’s plainly coercive to threaten children with prolonged detention while they are scared and not given the opportunity to speak to counsel or their family before they make a decision that has grave implications for their future,” Wroe said Tuesday.

CBP did not respond immediately to an email seeking comment, and in a declaration filed Tuesday, Michael Julien, a CBP official, wrote that agents only present the self-deport option to some unaccompanied children crossing illegally. Julien said the option is presented orally, not in writing.

Attorneys said they found 13 cases in South Texas involving the new policy but argued that more cases exist beyond those they identified. Kate Talmor, senior counsel at the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, said the lawyers believe “this is happening to many, many more children and that the 13 that are mentioned in our motion are just those that kind of slipped through the cracks.” She said attorneys were able to intervene only in those 13 cases because a flight was not found in time and the children were sent to a shelter even after signing documents to return to their country.

Under the court schedule described in the motion, the federal government will have two weeks to file its opposition, after which the judge can decide whether to intervene to stop the policy for Guatemalan children and whether to broaden the protection to children from other countries.