A JUDGE in the United States issued an order on Sunday to temporarily block an attempt by the Trump administration to deport dozens of unaccompanied Guatemalan children back to their home country.

The emergency injunction issued by District Court Judge Sparkle Sooknanan came after children had been put on planes and were about to be sent back to Guatemala.

Lawyers had argued that if returned home the children, whose immigration claims have yet to be assessed, would be at risk of abuse and persecution.

Guatemala’s President Bernardo Arevalo and lawyers for the US Justice Department claim the children were not being deported but, instead, being reunited with their families.

President Arevalo slammed the judge’s ruling and vowed to continue fighting to bring the children home under a pilot programme he had agreed with US President Donald Trump.

Efren C Olivares of the National Immigration Law Centre, which filed the suit, said: “In the dead of night on a holiday weekend, the Trump administration ripped vulnerable, frightened children from their beds and attempted to return them to danger in Guatemala.”

White House immigration advisor Stephen Miller said: “The minors have all self-reported that their parents are back home in Guatemala. But a Democratic judge is refusing to let them reunify with their parents.”