Judge orders 3 families returned to US after finding agents used 'lies' to deport them

The families were supposed to be protected under a 2023 settlement
By Laura Romero
February 6, 2026, 2:16 PM

This is an exclusive ABC News article. You can read the original here

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to return three immigrant families to the U.S. after finding that federal immigration agents used "lies, deception, and coercion" to remove them. 

The families, according to U.S. District Judge Dana M. Sabraw, were originally separated at the southern border during the first Trump administration's "Zero Tolerance" policy. They were supposed to be protected under a 2023 settlement that granted them temporary legal status and a path to reunification, but they were deported last summer.

In the eight-page ruling, Judge Sabraw found that the government's removal of the families rendered the protections of the settlement "illusory." 

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"The manner in which each of these removals was affected, in addition to being unlawful, involved lies, deception, and coercion," Sabraw wrote.

In previous filings, the government has argued that the court lacks jurisdiction to order the return of the families while simultaneously arguing that certain families --including one that was removed despite having valid parole -- had actually departed the United States "voluntarily."

According to the judge, one mother who was separated from her 5-year-old daughter in 2018 was told by immigration officials last year that her legal status "did not matter." Officers instructed her to bring her minor children and their passports to a routine check-in.

The mother was told that if she did not "self-deport," her children would be placed in foster care or put up for adoption, according to the ruling. The family, including a 6-year-old U.S. citizen child, was eventually detained in a motel for three days before being flown to Honduras.

In this Aug. 26, 2011, file photo, the Homeland Security logo is seen shortly before a press conference at FEMA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images, FILE

Judge Sabraw wrote that during a July 2025 check-in, the mother said she "wanted to give up" because she "increasingly felt that [she] could not survive in the U.S. under these conditions."

In her order, Sabraw ruled that the government must "bear the cost of returning these family units to the United States."

"Each of the removals was unlawful, and absent the removals, these families would still be in the United States and have access to the benefits and resources they are entitled to under the Settlement Agreement," the judge wrote.

A spokesperson with the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.