This is the provision Ensign cited as the basis for the government's authority to summarily remove unaccompanied migrant children. I’d love to hear from immigration lawyers, but having briefly looked at it… it’s so frivolous it’d be laughable if it weren’t so cruel. (Am I wrong??)
Wait RFK Jr is responsible for these children??
Generalia specialibus non derogant, but conservatives don't actually know Latin they just jack off to the aesthetics
Are they trafficking them? What the hell is going on?
Yes. For expenses of American taxpayers
“…in appropriate cases” - the judge read declarations in court from kids who said their parent(s) abused and/or neglected them. Won’t fly
100%
Never dealt with it. First reaction is this is Title 6. You might need some action pursuant to Title 8 relating to the child before you could have an appropriate case for reunification.
Trump's cruelty knows no bounds. He thrives on it. He has stated that getting revenge feels good. Clearly, this includes being cruel to children. It's incredibly sick and dangerous that he doesn't give a hoot if children are traumatized as a result of his total lack of empathy and morality.
This one is probably Miller's "revenge." Trump seems busy hiding and pretending to golf.
@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social when the weekend is over.
There’s a bunch of statutory protections that specifically apply to removals of unaccompanied migrant children. But DOJ argues that 6 U.S.C. 279(B)(1)(H) establishes an independent basis for removal in order to “reunify” kids w/ a parent abroad… bsky.app/profile/joed...
Isn't there a law that says that US govt. should treat unaccompanied kids under 5 as if they were US citizens? I vaguely remember reading about it when I first heard the massive amount of unaccompanied migrant kids the US was holding. But I can't find the law.
…The government’s argument seems crazy to me because, among other things, it suggests that 6 U.S.C. 279(b)(1)(H) displaces or overrides processes set out in statutes like the TVPRA bsky.app/profile/anna...
Why is the law always in the way of Stephen Miller’s acute sensibilities for the well-being of children?
Anna, thank you for your work on this. You must have gotten not much more sleep than the judge. These children desperately need people with a platform like yours sharing their story.
Judge Sooknanan asked Ensign about this during the hearing and tbh even he seemed reluctant to take the view that the provision he cited overrides all the other statutory protections… He tried to argue that the Title 6 provision is “its own form of protection”?? bsky.app/profile/anna...
During the hearing yesterday, Ensign said: “This has been done previously. This is not a new use of this authority. Prior Secretaries have done precisely this.” He didn't cite specific examples. What is he talking about? When did prior Secretaries do this? bsky.app/profile/anna...
"People are saying, many people, with tears in their eyes, are coming up to me and saying ..."
dunno, if Congress wanted the other statutes to limit the (b) (1) (H) authority wouldn’t they have put something in that provision to limit its use only to appropriate cases? What kind of language might they have used? 🤣🤣🤣
Is he going to have an opportunity to brief that?
I'm just spitballing here but maybe he's thinking of Elian Gonzales? Equally likely he's just, you know, lying.
Ensign is a shitheel douche kazoo.
Didn’t Gonzales go through an entire appeals process??
I think he was reunited with his father *in the U.S.* at one point, but he didn’t leave the country until the asylum/legal process was exhausted And I have no idea if the Secretary of Homeland Security relied on 279(b)(1)(H) at any point during all of that
If I remember correctly Gonzalez was reunited with his father under a treaty related to adoption and parental rights. His father wanted him back and requested his return. I believe the case was ultimately about parental custody not immigration.
It was a cluster%^&*. I think they were making a lot of it up as they went along but @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social would know better
if you wanna feel old look at what gonzales is up to these days
Teaching National Security Law... With an emphasis on avoiding that pesky "torture" bugaboo. (Probably)
This is also not one for my knowledge. Certainly, the idea that ORR could independently run its own repatriation service seems wildly wrong. My read of the statue suggests ORR could probably create some kind of voluntary process *in harmony with* Title 8, but not separate and parallel to.
Thank you, Aaron.
Also I don’t understand why Ensign kept saying the title 6 provision authorizes the *Secretary of Homeland Security* to repatriate the children (as opposed ORR/HHS). I know ORR said it’s working w/ DHS, but Ensign seemed to suggest that the statute itself vests authority in Noem
It was INS back then, DHS didn't exist yet, right?
Statute*
The Elian Gonzalez case was in 1999-2000. The then INS memo was written by Bo Cooper, signed by Doris Meissner. Sec 279 cited by Ensign is part of Homeland Security Act of 2002 transferring care and custody of unaccompanied children from INS to ORR.
Based on his past performance, I think he's relaying — agency counsel told him this and he has not verified it. Maybe that's lying on his part, but I think it's closer to bullshitting.
We do see that a lot with DOJ lawyers, even more so recently. They will make a statement with no qualifications as an indisputable fact, when they actually should have said, according to the agency, or, according to my client, or, my understanding is, and then stated the thing.
And most judges will let them get away with it without any pushback and even get mad at opposing counsel if they argue that this is just a statement of opinion with no backing and refuse to ask for clarification, when one of us mere peasants would be drawn and quartered for doing the same thing.
I agree, but he says "I've been told" so often in these TRO hearings that it's basically implied top-to-bottom.
So he throws Noem under the bus when Ensign knows this was a Stephen Miller thing?
Uniting a particular child with a parent in a foreign country is not authorization to transport entire planes of children to a foreign country and hoping they'll find their parents.
Ensign's should really just be honest: "How do I say something, your honor, that will allow Stephen Miller to wank to it?"
At heart isn't it: 1. Trump can do whatever 2. Trump is the government 3. The government can do whatever 4. If #3 = no, see SCOTUS and goto #2
is there any way that the courts can assign a special master to supervise the DoJ, because the courts are being clogged up with large number of cases based on utterly pretextual legal arguments that no competent attorney would ever advance?
Waking up this AM and trying to get oriented. Are we still waiting for the DOJ to confirm the return of the final 2 children? Or is it 1?
2, still waiting
It makes you wonder where they fuck they were that its taken this long
Is there anything like Rule 11 sanctions available to the judge?
i know it’s naive to keep asking WHY, but…WHY? why did they decide to steal CHILDREN from the foster care system (?) and deport them for no clear political goal with no legal basis? is this just what they think fun is like? i know intellectually that the cruelty is the point but christ
Abrego and these kids were low hanging fruit that wouldn't fight back and wont get you protesting in the streets. Its not about the cruelty, its a (no pun intended) cold calculated effort to slowly turn up the temperature on the pot the plan to boil us in. a lack of empathy rather than active malice
kids in cages got everyone protesting in the streets last time tho, including tech employees. it seems stupid to go for kids again when that backfired so badly last time.
WE aren't going to have kids in cages on the nightly news. Last time we had starvation in a country on the scale of Palestine, we had protests. Decades of 'starving kids in africa so eat your bad food'. now the dead aren't on the news, and so americans dont care.
The reason to deport them in secret as they did is to hide the evidence. Prevent the pushback. stop the public from getting involved. Once they are gone, there won’t be anymore photos of detention camps. They saw the mistake with Abrego and trump 1.
Did DHS arrange for the children to reunite with family prior to loading them on the planes? I suspect not. Probably just made a deal with the government to accept the flight. Can DHS provide a list of those they contacted, to even ensure the relatives are alive and willing to accept?
I’m not an immigration expert, but 6 USC § 279 was part of the act creating DHS in 2002, and is a housekeeping section transferring functions previously handled another agency to the ORR (which is part of HHS). It doesn’t create new pathways for removal nor alter the requirements of the TVPA/TVPRA.
Someone should ask Ensign whether the DOJ has located any of the parents of any of these children. This is human trafficking.
The statute they’re citing just identifies the responsible department, not the required process. Their argument that this one sentence exempts them from compliance with other statutes could also be used to argue that they can murder the children as long as they send the dead bodies to their parents.
The standard right wing approach to jurisprudence is that they find some words they like; those are now the only words that matter; no other words matter.
An unidentified parent?
Child trafficking must be highly profitable.
it seems crazy to you, because you can't conceive of the actual pure malice that is motivating these actions. Because we still have courts, those actions still require even the most absurd pretextual legal rationales. But we're talking EVIL, not insanity here.
I’m not a lawyer, but DOJ arg seems predicated upon an idea of human rights that’s been circulating in RW circles for decades, but pushed hard recently: parental rights above all. See the draft Convention on the Rights of the Family (orig. written by 🇵🇱 Ordo Iuris)
Parental rights except for reading books and trans kids and …
Yes. The argument is neither consistent nor made in good faith. It is explicitly patriarchal and actively harmful.
Madame Obvious: they have no list of those parents....
Very confusing. Doesn't 6 U.S.C. 279 deal w/ the transition of responsibility for overseeing migrant children from Immigration enforcement to HHS so therefore (B)(1)(H) is saying that the function of reuniting (when appropriate) is something HHS will do? Just like all the other functions on list?
That’s what I thought (but maybe I’m missing something).
Even if it was applicable, Angie Salazar is the acting director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. She would be the one making the decision. Was she even mentioned?
Yeah, that, too. Weirdly, Ensign told the judge that this authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security to reunify migrant children with parents abroad. (And I specifically remember him saying that bc I was like..huh????????) But notice sent by ORR to care providers said it was working w/ DHS
![IMMEDIATE ATTN: REUNIFICATION OF UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN NOTICE TO ATTORNEYS OF RECORD You are receiving this notice as the attorney of record for [UAC Name]. The Government of Guatemala has requested the return of certain unaccompanied alien children in federal custody for the purposes of reunifying the UAC with suitable family members. The United States Government is determined to honor this request, and to that end ORR is cooperating with interagency partners at the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice/Executive Office for Immigration Review to reunify UAC who meet the following parameters with their parents) in Guatemala, under ORR's authority at 6 U.S.C. 279(b)(1)(H): • Child is a national of Guatemala; Child does not have a parent or legal guardian in the United States who is sponsoring the child; • Child has a parent or legal guardian in Guatemala; Child does not have credible fear claim or a pending asylum case; ORR is assured the child will not be trafficked upon their return; Child is medically cleared for travel; Child does not have indications of being a victim of trafficking; and • Child does not have indications of child abuse/neglect perpetrated by a parent/legal guardian. ORR has conducted an evaluation and determined that [UAC Name] has been identified as meeting the above criteria as of the time of this note. For children for whom an NTA has been filed with an Immigration Court. This communication is provided as advance notice that removal proceedings may be dismissed to support the prompt repatriation of the child. As a reminder, ORR is not a party to the immigration proceedings of the child and is unable to confirm the possible outcome of individual removal proceedings. ORR expects repatriation travel to begin on Sunday, August 31, 2025. If you have reason to suspect that your client does not meet the above criteria, please contact ORR at ORRGuatemalaReunification@acf.hhs.gov and let the ICE Chief Counsel's Office know as …](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:t4x2ruk2qmob2b2cx55h4v7r/bafkreic75epqzed7pxcvehz276xtccuco6sxim36fnnnx7tmmhvon6tywi@jpeg)
*Sorry I mean notice sent to ATTORNEYS (but they also sent different notices to the ORR care providers)
correct me if I'm wrong, but the judge read from an affidavit from a child claiming to have a "pending asylum case"... and here is ORR claiming that is untrue?
I mean yeah, there’s that too. And clearly some of these kids have indications of parental abuse/neglect etc. Ensign said he wanted to brief the matter/file a response to those issues…he didn’t seem like have an explanation
true, but that rests on the question of "credible" fear -- so DoJ can just claim they don't think the child is credible, and it even if DoJ loses, it will be looked at as a judgment call. But whether the child has a pending asylum claim at the time of his/her removal is a "true or false" question
Elián González revenge
Echos of Elian Gonzalez.
Ensign has never & will never be accused of comprehending or applying the term ‘appropriate’ with any modicum of accuracy
Sparkle? 🤷♂️
Yes?
Anna, thank you for your incredible job of keeping us up to the moment on all this news today. 👏👏👏👏👏👏
They may have done (G) & the three parts of (J), but they certainly seem not to have bothered with anything else that was legally required by that list.
our problem is that they want to (H) hurt babies and they’re arguing the other statues allow for it!
And as it was cited, the government has not proven the validity of the parent or guardians claim of the children….hope the court asks how much money is involved and based on what written agreement…. @hrw.org @hrc.org @unicefusa.org
@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social @aclu.org @davidjbier.bsky.social @skyeperryman.bsky.social
I'm not a lawyer, but if what the Trump Admin was doing here was so lawful and noble ("reuniting Guatemalan kids w/their families"), why were they doing it in secret, in the middle of the night, during a holiday weekend? And why does DOJ need until Friday to explain their actions?
I think "in appropriate cases" is doing a lot of flexing here...
So, in an earlier article that I read, there was at least one teenager with a baby. Is that baby American? Is this another case of the US deporting an immigrant, in this case a child, along with a US citizen?
I'm real curious about "legal counsel for each child". Obviously some of them are acting in their client's best interests. What about the others? Is it different circumstances for them or do the attorneys involved have a different standard of care?
Thank you for covering that, Anna.
Muddying the waters www.npr.org/2025/08/31/n...
But why in the middle of the night on a holiday weekend?
Retired now but my recall is reunification abroad is an individual social worker assessment with many legal concerns re informed consent and child’s best interests and rarely done
Not a lawyer, social worker with such children who could be eligible for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status but looks like there is a recent policy change www.uscis.gov/sites/defaul...
Nosferatu Miller thought this one up.
While his nominal boss is functionally incapacitated.
In the so-called authority by Ensign --re the focus on reuniting with family in Guatemala. Was there any representation in court that DOJ has been in touch with any of the kids' families in Guatemala ready to take guardianship? Betcha not.
Ensign claimed the parents have requested the children’s’ return but needs until next Friday to brief the court with the specifics (which means now they will try to dig up the background……).
And the plaintiffs rebutted that,with affidavits from the children.
Did they fiinally get ALL of the kids back, or is there still one or two, do you know?
Latest update I've seen is this: bsky.app/profile/anna...
That's the last I saw also.
All now back in ORR custody: bsky.app/profile/anna...
Good. And just a wee bit surprising, frankly, knowing how devious and dishonest they are. Maybe Ensign is tired of taking more heat.
You are SO staying on top of it!
Thank you for your hard work reporting these travesties to the people. It must also take a huge emotional toll. Take good care of yourself.
We know that many of these children are not from Guatemala so a parent reunification is illogical & false reasoning. This sets these children up for the predator to grab them for sex trafficking in that country. AND, it is a blatant disregard and ignoring of these children's right to due process.
Anna, I am not finding evidence that the US citizens of Guatemalan background are very aware of this story yet. What you are reporting is so important, thank you for helping to raise the awareness so we can get some basic info on these kids.
“Appropriate” is the Achilles Heel of this rule. As we know from Ghislaine Maxwell’s statement, that she never saw Trump behave “inappropriately,” the administration doesn’t share the conventional definition of appropriate behavior.
She never saw "President" Trump behave inappropriately, but what did she see Donald Trump do?
Only she didn't say his name she replied using the name of his office limiting her answer to the interval within his official terms.
😒 bsky.app/profile/sund...
📌
Please post everywhere Rep. Ro Khanna On September 3rd at 10:30am ET, Rep. Massie and I are hosting a press conference joined by survivors of Epstein and Maxwell's abuse — several of whom will be speaking out for the first time. The survivors deserve justice and the public deserves transparency.
Just so you know what this guy looks like. Arizona Republican, you may infer what you will from that, it's quite an interesting species.
By contrast, here is the statute on which the children are relying. In no uncertain terms, it says that you cannot remove children without placing them in removal proceedings and giving them lawyers.
Right and it’s insane to suggest that the title 6 provision displaces that!!!
Some of these lawyers really must never plan to work out in the world again after the Trump administration.
Am I legally allowed to file this video as an amicus brief? www.tiktok.com/t/ZT6GobR6F/
I feel like we as a society need to come to appreciate season 6 of Community more.
I am very eager to see the DOJ brief explaining the "humanitarian" work around they did...
I’m not a lawyer, but the way these laws are written it just seems like everything is right and nothing is at the same time. I know some things are supposed to take precedent, but it’s crazy to me how many laws cited by the gov seem to directly contradict with other laws
I suppose. But imagine I told you (1) you're allowed to go grocery shopping and (2) you have to ask me before buying steak. You cannot show up with unexpected steak and say, “you said I had grocery shopping powers!”
I think the government may argue that ORR isn't part of DHS.
Yeah, but I think the immigration lawyers agree that ORR has no general immigration or repatriation authority. They're just taking care of the kids while DHS manages their immigration issues. bsky.app/profile/joed...
That’s a really good way to put it, thanks!
But when the supreme court only listens to the arguments that support their conclusions will this hold up?
At the very least, they’d have to show that in each and every case, they knew where the child’s parent was and had communicated with them about the child’s imminent arrival. Which of course they DID NOT DO.
For now, it doesn't matter much what the Supreme Court thinks. And once we get there, I do think the relative quality of these arguments will matter to at least eight justices.
But it says BY THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY and ORR is part of HHS. Does this apply when §279 moves the removal from INS-now-ICE to HHS? It is not obvious to me.
Ordinarily, these children are in HHS/ORR’ care (not, say, ICE detention), but their immigration matter remains with DHS. www.hhs.gov/programs/soc...
Let’s call this what it is: Slavery. Some of them claimed to be abused by the parents that drug them from their originating country across the continent, & we’re supposed to be confident: a) The *gov’t* is going to find responsible sponsors at home? b) & THAT person would be responsible? GTFOOH 🤡
These are unaccompanied children, meaning their parents did not drag them to the United States. They could have sent them to the United States, unaccompanied, via coyotes, tho.
Not all of them were unaccompanied. As the article mentions…the kids made complaints at some point, to people, on US soil, about their treatment. Sure, maybe not every single one was accompanied, but the majority are.
I’m getting so tired of this petty nitpicking details to support someone’s one off opinion on the matter. Stop trying to refute an article you didn’t write.
Sure let's believe the dude thats part of child trafficking to tell us the truth about what's happening to children and women.
Does anyone know what alerted lawyers to the kids being moved?
The ORR foster care/care facilities with custody of the kids received notices telling them that the children needed to be ready to leave in 2 hours. Some of the attorneys for the kids received notices, too.
Thanks for that
Wyden ?
Russian mafia and KGB are hunting on the lawyers via RAOA network of their agents openly working in America
Well thats just downright evil.
Make sure you get some sleep, lady! Thanks for all you do.
The judge seemed to agree with you.
They are scum. We see scum as our leadership. And they act like we are them.
And we’re just supposed to believe that DOJ ensured that a parent was waiting in Guatemala for each of these children? Now why do I think that’s unlikely *eye roll*
Same in Russia. They are still cooperating with our one century old terrorists🤦
One of the kids with a lawyer has a statement that explicitly says her dad is in Guatemala but cannot take care of her, a mess
Not a legal argument but consistent with the admin's ideology that children are parental property with no personal agency or autonomy
I don't know anything but "appropriate" is inadequately defined and thus too broad and not legally binding.
Meanwhile, two days prior...
