SAN DIEGO: A judge says the federal government must return three families hurt by the first Trump administration’s policy of separating parents from the children at the border, saying their deportations in recent months relied on “lies, deception and coercion.”
The order, issued Thursday, found the deported families should have been allowed to remain in the United States under terms of a legal settlement over the Trump administration’s separation of about 6,000 children from their parents at the border in 2018. Each mother had permission to remain in the US until 2027 under humanitarian parole.
US District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego said the administration also had to pay for their return travel costs.
One woman and her three children, including a 6-year-old US citizen, were deported to Honduras in July after being ordered to check in with ICE at least 11 times over two months, which, she said, caused her to lose her job.
Sabraw rejected the government’s argument that the family left the US voluntarily. The woman said ICE officers visited her home and asked her sign a document agreeing to leave but she refused.
