A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to bring back three families who were deported to Honduras and other countries, ruling that their removals were based on “lies, deception and coercion.”
The families were among those harmed by the administration’s earlier policy of separating parents from children at the U.S. border.
In an order issued Thursday, the judge said the families should have been allowed to stay in the United States under a legal settlement stemming from the 2018 separation of roughly 6,000 children from their parents. Under that settlement, each of the mothers had been granted humanitarian parole allowing them to remain in the U.S. until 2027.
U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw, based in San Diego, also ruled that the government must cover the costs of returning the families to the United States.
One of the cases involved a woman and her three children, including a 6-year-old U.S. citizen, who were deported to Honduras in July. The woman said she had been required to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at least 11 times over two months, which she said led to her losing her job.
Sabraw rejected the government’s claim that the family left the country voluntarily. According to court filings, ICE officers went to the woman’s home and asked her to sign paperwork agreeing to leave the U.S., but she refused.
“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.
The other two families, identified only by their initials, experienced similar circumstances.
“Each of the removals was unlawful, and absent the removals, these families would still be in the United States and have access to the benefits and resources they are entitled to,” wrote Sabraw, who was appointed by President George W. Bush.
Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union representing the families, praised the ruling.
“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,” he said.
The Departments of Homeland Security and Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.
The original family separations occurred under a “zero-tolerance” policy that mandated criminal prosecution of parents who crossed the border illegally, resulting in children being taken from them. Sabraw ordered an end to the practice in June 2018, shortly after President Trump halted it himself following widespread international criticism. The settlement agreement bans such a policy from being reinstated until 2031.