Acacia Statement on Administration’s Attempts to Illegally Remove Guatemalan Children
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 2, 2025
CONTACT: press@acaciajustice.org
WASHINGTON – Shaina Aber, executive director of the Acacia Center for Justice issued the following statement in response to the Trump administration’s shocking attempt to illegally deport Guatemalan children, many of whom are members of persecuted Indigenous communities:
“The government’s midnight round-up of unaccompanied children and efforts to illegally expel them should shock everyone who believes that children have a right to safety and protection. When they thought nobody was watching, the administration woke children in the middle of the night, without reasonable notice to children’s counsel and prepared scared kids to board a flight to the very country they had fled.”
“We are grateful to our incredible partners in the legal field and the children’s advocates who filed emergency motions to stop this illegal deportation effort of the most vulnerable children in our communities. Children should not be pawns in political theatre of a mass deportation.
“Let’s be clear, returning children who have expressed fears of being trafficked, persecuted, or otherwise harmed, to those who would harm them is not protection or reunification. It is cruelty, and we will hold this administration accountable.”
While the government claimed this was a reunification flight, the court’s findings cited declaration after declaration from the children who expressed fear of return for being trafficked, subjected to anti-Indigenous persecution, or returned to the dangers they fled.
Children have a right to have their cases heard in front of a judge before removal or repatriation to ensure they are not returned to circumstances where their life and safety will be jeopardized. This child protection framework was passed unanimously by Congress nearly two decades ago and signed into law by then-President George W. Bush.
###