Judge orders U.S. to return families affected by Trump's family separation policy who were deported

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the U.S. government to return three migrant families affected by the family separation policy during President Trump's first administration and then deported under his second, declaring the deportations "unlawful."

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the U.S. government to return three migrant families affected by the family separation policy during President Trump's first administration and then deported under his second, declaring the deportations "unlawful."

U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, ruled that the families' deportations violated a court settlement designed to provide certain benefits to those affected by the first Trump administration's policy of forcibly separating migrant children from their parents along the U.S.-Mexico border. 

That infamous weeks-long policy was scrapped in 2018 amid legal challenges and widespread public outcry. In 2023, the Biden administration entered into a court settlement in which the U.S. government committed to offering certain benefits to the families impacted by the policy and limiting the ability for officials to carry out a similar practice in the future.

"Although the Settlement Agreement does not prohibit Defendants from enforcing the laws of the United States, the removals at issue here clearly violated the spirit of the Agreement, which was to effect and support reunification in the United States of families that had been separated pursuant to the family separation policy," Sabraw wrote in his ruling.

"Defendants' decision to remove these families rendered the benefits of the Settlement Agreement illusory for these families, and the manner in which each of these removals was affected, in addition to being unlawful, involved lies, deception, and coercion," he continued.