Federal Court blocks Trump administration to send teenage migrants to detention centers for adults

A judge on Saturday has temporarily blocked the Trump government to send minor migrants to detention centers for adults as soon as they turn 18.

Judge Rudolph Contreras of the American district said that the new policy is damaging an order that he issued in 2021, in which the American immigration and customs enforcement is ordered not to send a migrant to an ice detention center after they have turned 18.

Minor migrants are not held in ice detention centers. They are held in centers run by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Fox News Digital has contacted ICE for comment.

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The Trump administration now offers teenage migrants a stipend of $ 2,500 to voluntarily leave the United States, according to various reports with a letter sent on Friday by the Ministry of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office or Refugee To Shorters Housing Migrant Children.

Various immigration rights groups had asked Contreras to intervene in the submission that was made on Saturday morning just after midnight on Saturday morning.

Last month, another judge blocked the Trump government to deport certain Guatemaltie minors to their home country after the government ran back that it intended to reunite the young people with their parents.

Judge Timothy Kelly, who issued the order, said that the Trump government could not show that parents wanted their children back.

Trump administration offers teenage migrants $ 2,500 to leave us voluntarily: reports

Immigrants are in the dining room in a new American government center for migrant children in Carrizo Springs, Texas, on July 9, 2019. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

“That statement crumbled like a card house about a week later,” Kelly wrote in his order. “There is no evidence for the court that the parents of these children have sought their return.”

Michelle Lapointe, a lawyer from the American Immigration Council, one of the organizations involved in the submission, said the Associated Press: “All these are the same general policy to force immigrant youths to give their right to seek protection in the United States.”

Migrant children in the US are often released in foster care or to family members as long as they are not considered an escape risk or a danger.

A federal agent is in a vehicle outside the American immigration and customs enforcement building (ICE) Wednesday 24 September 2025 in Broadview, Ill. (AP Photo/Erin Holey)

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For some of the migrants, lawyers said they heard that ice hiding places told that children who turned 18 would be brought to ice prison centers, even if they already had plans to be released and that they could only be released on case to “urgent humanitarian reasons” or “significant public benefit”.

Ashley Oliver and Michael Dorgan and the Associated Press contributed to this report.