A federal judge blocked the Trump administration on Thursday from immediately sending unaccompanied Guatemalan children from the United States to their home country, dealing the Trump administration a blow in a case that had become marked by confusion.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, an appointee of President Donald Trump, issued a preliminary injunction, superseding a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge appointed by former President Joe Biden that had blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to remove the unaccompanied children over Labor Day weekend.

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Lawyers for the children argued the administration had attempted the removals without allowing them to challenge it, while the DOJ initially argued that the Trump administration was simply reunifying the children with families in Guatemala who wanted them returned. The Justice Department later walked back that claim in a hearing last week, after the Guatemalan government said no families had actually requested the return of their children.

Kelly wrote in his opinion on Thursday that the original “explanation crumbled like a house of cards.”

“There is no evidence before the Court that the parents of these children sought their return. To the contrary, the Guatemalan Attorney General reports that officials could not even track down parents for most of the children whom Defendants found eligible for their ‘reunification’ plan. And none of those that were located had asked for their children to come back to Guatemala,” Kelly wrote.

Kelly approved an injunction barring the administration from removing any unaccompanied Guatemalan minors in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement who have not been served a final removal order or have not received permission to voluntarily depart the U.S. The order allows the minors to “litigate their statutory and constitutional claims.”

The judge’s move on Thursday comes after a chaotic legal battle that saw the Justice Department walk back its claims that reunifications, which families had requested, were being blocked by a Biden-appointed judge. A report from the Guatemalan government subsequently showed none of the families had requested the children to return from the U.S.

The Guatemalan government had previously said it wanted to attempt to bring home unaccompanied children in the U.S. who were nearing the age of 18 to their families in Guatemala in order to avoid them ending up in adult detention centers in the U.S. Officials from the U.S. identified 609 unaccompanied Guatemalan children in their custody aged 14 through 17 years old.

A review by Guatemalan officials, which was posted to the court’s docket, showed they were only able to get in contact with families for 115 of the 609 children to review if they could be suitably returned to their families. Of those assessments conducted, only 50 families said they were willing to welcome their children back. Still, the review also noted the parents did not request their children’s return from the U.S. Another 59 families “expressed annoyance” when the Guatemalan government attempted to determine whether their homes were suitable destinations for the children and rejected the government’s questions. Of the other six families, four said their child had been living with a sponsor in the U.S., and the other two said their child had already returned and was living in their home.

The unaccompanied children in the ORR’s custody are defined as those who have “no lawful immigration status in the United States,” are under the age of 18, and have either no legal guardian in the U.S. or no guardian able to “provide care and physical custody” in the United States. Many of the unaccompanied Guatemalan children at the center of the legal battle arrived at the U.S. border alone during the Biden administration.

TRUMP JUDGE EXTENDS PAUSE ON REMOVAL OF UNACCOMPANIED GUATEMALAN CHILDREN

Thursday’s order marks the latest setback for the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration and deportation agenda in the federal courts.

Trump’s deportation agenda has faced several speed bumps in federal courts, usually by judges appointed by Democrats, but Kelly’s order marks a rare instance of a Trump-appointed judge pausing the removal of illegal immigrants and noncitizens from the U.S.