This comes after receiving credible information that the government is planning to illegally remove unaccompanied children from Honduras as soon as this weekend.
Tucson, AZ – The Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project on Friday filed an amendment to last weekend’s lawsuit to include Honduran children in government custody in Arizona as well as four additional child plaintiffs from Guatemala. This amendment comes in response to credible reports that the U.S. government will imminently move forward with a plan to illegally remove Honduran children in government custody as soon as this weekend, in direct violation of their right to seek protection in the United States and despite ongoing litigation that blocked similar attempted extra-legal removals for children from Guatemala.
“It is truly astounding that the government is moving forward with this plan after they tried to do the same thing to children from Guatemala in the dead of night over Labor Day Weekend,” said Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu, Florence Project Deputy Director. “Right now, in Arizona and nationwide, there are temporary restraining orders in place blocking the government from effectuating this type of unlawful removals. The only difference between the children from Guatemala protected by those temporary restraining orders and the children from Honduras who are being targeted is their country of origin, and existing laws protecting unaccompanied minors applies to all migrant children in the government’s care. The blatant disrespect for the basic rule of law that the government is displaying towards these children shocks the conscience.”
The lawsuit is amended to include twelve children from Honduras who have expressed to the Florence Project that they do not want to return to Honduras, as well as four additional children from Guatemala who have come into government custody in Arizona since the suit was initially filed last week. The plaintiffs include children whose only parents able to care for them are already in the United States.
The lawsuit demands that the government be ordered to follow existing and well enshrined laws that provide protections for unaccompanied children in acknowledgement of their special vulnerabilities and the government’s duty to protect them. These include the right to present their cases to an immigration judge, to have access to legal counsel, and to be placed in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the child. The government’s plan to remove children to Guatemala, Honduras, or any country outside of these protections cruelly ignores decades of long-standing federal law and places children in harm’s way.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.