CBP agents are 'coercing' unaccompanied minors into 'voluntary' removal, lawyers say
Customs and Border Protection agents are attempting to return unaccompanied migrant children -- including some protected by a federal court order -- to their home countries before they can meet with an attorney or appear before an immigration judge, according to a court filing.
Attorneys representing a group of Guatemalan minors who were nearly deported over Labor Day weekend as part of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown alleged on Tuesday that the Trump administration is "engaged in a practice that openly flouts the plain text of the Court's injunction," which blocks the government from removing the minors from the U.S.
Last fall, a judge blocked the administration from deporting 76 unaccompanied Guatemalan children as they sat on planes.
Attorneys for the minors argued they were being removed without a final order from an immigration judge, while the government said in court it was removing the children in accordance with the law and at the request of the Guatemalan government and the children's legal guardians.
"Defendants are using misinformation, coercion, threats, and fear to persuade the children to relinquish their rights and sign paperwork purportedly accepting a form of expedited 'voluntary' return," the attorneys said in Tuesday's filing, which asks the court for an order to show cause why the government should not be held in civil contempt.
According to the filing, one indigenous Guatemalan minor protected by the court order reported that CBP agents "shouted, cursed, and threatened [him] with a dog and a stun gun" to pressure him into signing paperwork for voluntary departure.
"These coercive tactics are not reserved for Guatemalan children," the lawyers wrote. "One child from a noncontiguous country was handcuffed and interviewed by seven federal immigration officers without a parent or legal counsel present. That child was scared and pressured into signing a document agreeing to "'voluntary return' without any explanation of what it was."
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Customs and Border Protection, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
