
In an emergency hearing before Judge Sparkle Sooknanan on Aug. 31, 2025, lawyers for a group of unaccompanied migrant children from Guatemala asked her to stop the Trump administration’s deportation of hundreds of them back to Guatemala. Concerned that the Trump administration might not follow her order to stop, the judge emphatically repeated her order that temporarily barred the deportations. And then she said something unusual:
“I am trying to do the best I can to fulfill my obligation as an Article 3 judge …”