Secret Attempted Deportation of Close to 700 Guatemalan Children Blocked by Federal Judge, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Secret Attempted Deportation of Close to 700 Guatemalan Children Blocked by Federal Judge

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

September 1, 2025

Staffers of the Attorney General's Office take the data of relatives outside of the Returnee Reception Center while waiting for the arrival of minors intended to be deported from the United States, at the Guatemalan Air Force Base in Guatemala City on Aug. 31. Johan Ordonez/AFP Getty Images

In a stunning and chilling move over the holiday weekend, the Trump administration attempted to secretly deport hundreds of Guatemalan children—The Guardian reporting as many as 700—loading some onto planes before a federal judge intervened. Justice Sparkle Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, issued a temporary order halting the expulsions, noting that these children were being denied their legal right to seek asylum and risked being sent back to danger. Thanks to the National Immigration Law Center for defending these children's rights.

Attorneys did not mince words: this was child abuse disguised as policy.

Without the judge’s intervention, terrified children would have been expelled in the dead of night, stripped of protections guaranteed under U.S. law.

Of all this administration’s cruelties toward immigrants and its utter disregard for human rights, this stands out as an outlier among outliers. Not just Trump, but advisor Stephen Miller’s fingerprints are smeared across this operation—Miller, whose sadistic obsession with inflicting pain on immigrant families has long driven the administration’s most inhumane policies. 

Critics have even drawn chilling comparisons between Miller and Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s infamous propagandist, noting their shared reliance on fear, lies, and dehumanization as tools of power (Daily Kos, 2017). 

Joseph Goebbels and Stephen Miller.  Source: Daily Kos

Like Goebbels, his uncanny look-alike, Miller, understands that words and images can be weaponized: the relentless portrayal of immigrants as threats, the unending refrain of ‘invasion’ rhetoric, and the poisonous lie that immigrant children are a burden rather than a blessing.

Goebbels used propaganda to normalize the unthinkable; Miller uses policy and spin to achieve the same end—conditioning the public to accept, even rationalize, the abuse of small and young, vulnerable human beings.

What makes this episode even more alarming are the unanswered questions. We still do not know the exact ages of the children targeted—whether toddlers and very young children were among those nearly deported. If so, how many? Nor do we know where they were being held under the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, or in what conditions.

Equally disturbing is the possibility that ICE or U.S. Department of Health and Human Service officials ignored their own legal safeguards. Were attorneys, guardians, or child advocates notified in advance? If not, then the government sought to disappear children into dangerous situations without even the most basic due process protections.

And what of the dangers these children would face if returned? Violence, poverty, persecution—none of this appears to have been meaningfully assessed. Let us not forget: these are children who already managed the treacherous path from Guatemala to the U.S., carrying trauma from violence, displacement, and the long, perilous journey north. To now subject them to sudden deportation only compounds their mental anguish, turning resilience into retraumatization.

Finally, there are questions about whether the Guatemalan government truly requested their return, or whether this claim was exaggerated by the Department of Justice to justify a rushed and unlawful operation.

These children did not—nor have they ever—posed any risks to our country. The only “risks” here are the ones fabricated by a xenophobic administration: the false claim that children are a burden on our schools, that immigrant families undermine our communities, or that asylum seekers threaten national security. These are bogus risks, built on fear and racism, not fact.

We cannot remain silent.

Join us Thursday, September 4th at 5PM for the Austin SDS Rally—UT students standing against the Trump administration’s bigoted and reactionary agenda.

References

Eisner, C. (2025, Aug. 31) Hundreds of unaccompanied Guatemalan children can stay in the U.S. for now, judge says, Morning Edition, NPR. https://www.npr.org/2025/08/31/nx-s1-5524312/federal-judge-block-guatemalan-children-deportation

Guardian. (2025, Aug. 31). Judge orders US to halt deportation of hundreds of Guatemalan children, The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/31/judge-blocks-deportation-guatemalan-children

hammerinhank. (2017, November 5). Trump’s Stephen Miller and Hitler’s Joseph Goebbels are chillingly similar. Daily Kos. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/5/1687333/-Trump-s-Stephen-Miller-and-Hitler-s-Joseph-Goebbels-are-chillingly-similar?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Jordan, M. & Kavi, A. (2025, Aug. 31). Judge Halts U.S. Effort to Deport Guatemalan Children as Planes Sit on Tarmac, New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/us/politics/trump-deportations-judge-guatemala-children.html

"Why Decolonization Matters," by Margaret Kimberley—Sept. 14, 2022, Alternet

 In total agreement that we should not only take an unblinking look at monarchy and state violence, but that we should simultaneously disavow the seductive idea that we, as Americans, "should also be interested in the royals," as expressed herein by Margaret Kimberley. We are simply not to admire enslavers or colonizers. Kimberley further expresses the following:

"Decolonization is hard work and serious business. It requires a rejection of what passes for news and conventional wisdom. Of course, its meaning can be changed at an opportune moment, as recently happened when the neo-conservative fantasy of breaking up Russia was reimagined as decolonization. That sort of trickery is proof that political education is key."

I'm learning right now, for example, that Britain is devising ways to deport/export desperate refugees who turn up on their shores to Rwanda. For example, read this June 29, 2022 piece titled, Uproar Over Britain’s Rwanda Asylum Plan Overlooks Nagging Issues in Illegal Migration, as well as this Aug. 15, 2022 Reuters piece titled, "UK pushes ahead with Rwanda migrant scheme as small boats keep coming, together with this Sept. 7, 2022 Council on Foreign Relations piece titled, "What is the UK's plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda and how many could go?"

Doesn't look like this agenda has quite played out yet in Britain, but if Venezuelan refugees getting shipped off to the island of Martha's Vineyard by Ron deSantis pops into your head, that's an appropriate comparison. The Brits are not to be emulated in this regard. Asylum seekers have rights, too.

Civics education, including political education and Ethnic and Women and Gender Studies are definitely key to discerning when fascism is knocking at your door.

-Angela Valenzuela

#DecolonizationMatters #decolonize

Why Decolonization Matters

The word decolonization should not be treated as trendy slang. It describes an important political and psychological process.

Alternet, Counter Punch, Tom Paine and Buzzflash.

MARGARET KIMBERLEY

SEP 14, 2022

The word decolonization should not be treated as trendy slang. It describes an important political and psychological process. Media and state attempts at indoctrination show just how important it is.

It is vital to free ourselves from belief in the systems of white supremacy and imperialism that are inculcated in the educational system and are affirmed and amplified by the media and establishment opinion. The recent death of Queen Elizabeth II puts the need for political and psychological liberation in high relief. We are encouraged to admire an anachronistic monarchy, and are exhorted to join in mourning an individual and a system that have caused great harm to Black and other oppressed people around the world.

It is important to point out that British prime ministers are heads of government while the monarch is head of state. Elizabeth bore responsibility for every UK government action during her 70-year-long reign. The concentration camps and torture in Kenya during the independence struggle were her responsibility. So was the U.S. backed decision to undermine the commonwealth nation of Australia, and dispatch Gough Whitlam , the elected prime minister, who strayed too far from the imperialist consensus. The Windrush scandal which deprived Caribbean immigrants of their rights happened under her reign, as did Britain's invasion of Iraq and support for the destruction of Libya.

From childhood we are taught that invaders of other nations, enslavers, and colonizers are worthy of respect and admiration. 

Yet anyone who questions the monarchy’s role as part of the western axis of domination is rarely given access to media, making it difficult to be free of propaganda that is used to elicit fealty to monarchs, presidents and the people and institutions who empower them. 

From childhood we are taught that invaders of other nations, enslavers, and colonizers are worthy of respect and admiration. Centuries of criminality are passed off as benign and we are admonished to remember that the criminals in question were “products of their time” and are to be thought of with fond reverence.

The corporate media didn’t begin lionizing the queen of England just this week. Her private life and that of her ancestors are the stuff of endless histories that permeate popular culture. Eras in British history are directly identified with past monarchs and called Elizabethan or Victorian or Edwardian. The idea that Americans should also be interested in the royals is the result of heavy-handed indoctrination.

This columnist was the recipient of a Eurocentric education, beginning with an emphasis on European history in high school. College continued this unstated belief in the superiority of the people being studied, that is to say white people who either were from the ruling classes or worked to further their interests. History lessons were full of emphasis on the blood lines of monarchs, and stories of which king or queen did what to whom were staples of the curriculum. It is a somewhat interesting factoid that the monarchs of Great Britain, Russia and Germany in the early 10th century were all related but that information doesn’t reveal anything about the causes of World War I. The lede was buried under historical fluff but teachers and professors don’t announce that they are brainwashing students.

I was taught nothing of Belgian King Leopold’s personal theft of the Congo’s resources or of the killing of some 15 million people there.

Of course that is why the very deliberate confusion continues. The narrative that the U.S. and Britain have a “special relationship” is based on manufactured sentimentality rather than the fact that the founding state acts in concert with its settler colony. The indoctrination process can be like a sledgehammer, as it will be for the next few days, but can also be more subtle. None of my teachers said that the deaths of white people were worse than the deaths of people of color, but the only time I heard the word genocide in a classroom was if the Nazi killings of Jewish people were discussed. 

I was taught nothing of Belgian King Leopold’s personal theft of the Congo’s resources or of the killing of some 15 million people there. Nor was the word genocide used to describe the trans-Atlantic slave trade or chattel slavery as practiced throughout the Americas or the deaths by invasion, slaughter, and disease of indigenous people which also took place in this hemisphere. The elevation of one group as the sole victims of genocide and the erasure of others as not being worthy of the designation sends a subtle message that seeps into the mind and is imprinted in memory.

Decolonization is hard work and serious business. It requires a rejection of what passes for news and conventional wisdom. Of course, its meaning can be changed at an opportune moment, as recently happened when the neo-conservative fantasy of breaking up Russia was reimagined as decolonization. That sort of trickery is proof that political education is key.

Our political education must take place within revolutionary educational structures. If it doesn’t, we will believe that World War II started in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. It actually began in 1937 when Japan attacked China. What ought to be a simple and commonly known fact is lost because white supremacy centers the European experience. When we learn new information and unlearn falsehoods, the process of decolonizing begins. At that point no one has to direct us to ignore royal weddings or funerals or unveilings of Barack and Michelle Obama’s new portraits. We know the truth and free ourselves from believing in state propaganda.

Decolonized people know that the prestigious universities they are told to admire receive funds from the Defense Department and the military industrial complex. They know that think tanks that are treated as oracles not to be questioned are also an extension of the state. Corporate media are also compromised. The publisher of the Washington Post played a key role in Operation Mockingbird , the CIA’s plan to control the media. Of course the current owner, Jeff Bezos, has CIA contracts through Amazon so little has changed. The decolonized know that the media act as scribes for police departments as much as they do for the state department.

Most importantly, radical and independent media, like Black Agenda Report and LA Progressive, are a must for anyone who wants to free their thinking. BAR is one of the few publications, even left publications, which seriously analyzed the NATO attack on Libya, or the coups against the people of Haiti, or the U.S. role that began the current crisis in Ukraine. Reading BAR on a regular basis is an antidote to mental colonization.

So beware when a narrative is spun 24 hours per day, seven days per week. In all likelihood it is one that must be opposed, and in the best decolonized fashion possible.

BY

 MARGARET KIMBERLEY

Margaret Kimberley is a New York-based writer and activist for peace and justice issues. Ms. Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. She has been a columnist for Black Agenda Report since its inception, and was for four years the weekly columnist for Black Commentator. She also provides original work on Patreon. Her work has also appeared in the Dallas Morning News, the Chicago Defender, and on web sites 

Haitian Immigrants at the Texas Border Deserve Better Treatment by Dr. Edward T. Rincón

It is disturbing to witness the harsh and inhumane treatment of already traumatized Haitian immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border. We all know it would be a different story altogether if it were Canadians trying to get in. Dr. Rincón reminds us that our nation has been served well by a long history of immigration. 

We must all always summon the best of who we are in times of crisis like this. In a spirit of humility and loving kindness, we should all acknowledge that "By the grace of God I am." (I Cor. 15: 10) Plus, we as a society are abundantly endowed with the capacity to grow a "broader we." 

The least we can do is treat all migrants seeking asylum with dignity and respect, giving them access to legal counsel so that their pleas for asylum can get heard. If you want to make a contribution to a great organization that addresses these migrants' claims, consider making a donation to Raices.

-Angela Valenzuela

@RAICESTEXAS @RAICESACTION #ImmigrationIsABlackIssue #ImmigrationReform #asylum #HaitianLivesMatter @GovAbbott @ImmigrActivists

Haitian Immigrants at the Texas Border Deserve Better Treatment

by Edward T. Rincón, Ph.D.

Such is the vision inscribed at the Statue of Liberty that for generations has represented America’s ideal for welcoming previous waves of immigrants to our nation.   The thousands of Haitian immigrants that recently arrived at the southern U.S. border, however, were met with border patrols on horseback using lariats to control the crowds of immigrants --- not exactly the welcoming committee that would ordinarily alleviate the pain and hunger of traumatized victims.

President Biden deserves some of the blame for this surge for publicly announcing that his administration would promote more humane immigration policies. However, immigration from Mexico has declined dramatically in recent years despite Biden’s promotion of more humane immigration policies  – an outcome that reflects how the flow of immigration can be controlled when countries collaborate to achieve mutual goals.

President Biden, however, does not deserve all of the blame for the surge of Haitian immigrants. What energized the surge of Haitians was a devastating earthquake, the assassination of the country’s president, the failed Haitian economy, and the proliferation of crime --- clearly events beyond Biden’s control.  Moreover, history tells us that President Biden is not alone in encouraging more humane immigration policies. Indeed, numerous past presidents have issued executive orders to protect the status of various immigrants from different countries. [i]

While our political leaders decide on the ultimate disposition of Haitian immigrants, we should all be alarmed at the treatment that these immigrants have received at the Texas border.  Rather than comfort these immigrants who have experienced considerable trauma in their home countries and their travel to our border,  we instead decide to return them as quickly as possible to their home countries where their lives will remain in danger from crime and food deprivation.  On the other hand, the U.S. does have some choices to consider.

Our country is a nation of immigrants whose economic and intellectual growth has been fueled by the presence of immigrants.  As we ponder the decision to deport Haitian immigrants to their home countries, perhaps we need a brief reminder of the many ways in which immigrants have benefited our country:

·        Immigrants have often met the demand for labor shortages in such industries as food, hospitality, construction, and healthcare.  As a result of the pandemic and restrictive immigration policies, our nation is in dire need of more employees. Studies have shown that immigration provides a younger workforce, the entrepreneurial workers, and the skilled employees needed for essential industries such as healthcare, construction, agriculture, and food processing. [ii]

·        Non-citizens have historically served an important mission in defense of the U.S.  According to the Department of Defense, non-citizen recruits are likely to possess language and cultural skills that are of strategic importance to military operations outside of the U.S.  Between 2016 to 2020, there were 29, 970 non-citizens that were approved for naturalization in the U.S. military. [iii]  The top five countries represented by non-citizens in the military included Philippines, Mexico, China, South Korea and Jamaica.

·        The Social Security trust fund has been kept solvent in part from the substantial contributions made by unauthorized immigrant workers. Undocumented immigrants contributed $13 billion into the Social Security funds in 2016. While they make contributions, undocumented immigrants are not eligible to receive social security benefits. [iv]

·        Immigrants have contributed substantially to scientific innovation in the U.S.:    In the United States since 1976, citizens of foreign countries have filed 25 percent to 30 percent of patents. Indeed, immigrants file patents at double the rate of native-born Americans because they are more likely to hold science and engineering degrees. [v]

Given the many contributions that immigrants have made to the U.S. and the current labor shortages across many industries, perhaps we should pause to remember the virtues inscribed in the Statue of Liberty and offer the Haitian immigrants the same opportunity that previous waves of immigrants have experienced upon arrival to our nation.  Indeed, if the situation were reversed and U.S. residents were forced to seek humanitarian assistance from our global neighbors, would we want to be greeted by troopers on horseback using a lariat upon our arrival?  Probably not.

Reference Notes

---

[i] Desilver, D. (2014, November 21).  Executive actions on immigration have long history, Pew Research Center, Accessed at: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/11/21/executive-actions-on-immigration-have-long-history/

[ii] The Labor Law Review. (2021, August 26).  Immigration and labor shortages. Accessed at:   https://www.natlawreview.com/article/immigration-and-labor-shortages

[iii]   U.S. Citizenship and Naturalization Services. Military Naturalization Statistics. Accessed on 9-24-21 at: https://www.uscis.gov/military/military-naturalization-statistics

[iv]  New American Economy.  Undocumented immigrants.  Accessed on 9-24-21 at:   https://www.newamericaneconomy.org/issues/undocumented-immigrants/#economic-contributors,-not-criminals

[v] Nowrasteh, A. (2020, May 14).  Don’t Ban H-1B Workers: They Are Worth Their Weight in Innovation, CATO Institute, Accessed at: https://www.cato.org/blog/dont-ban-h-1b-workers-they-are-worth-their-weight-patents  

Climate crisis forces many Hondurans to migrate to find better lives

Great reporting from Franc Contreras on the climate emergency that

Hondurans have experienced. In November 2020, two major hurricanes slammed the country of Honduras. We need to consider that many of the migrants entering the U.S. are climate change migrants.  Their farmlands were either destroyed or disappeared altogether. Add this to the political corruption, violence, poverty, and hunger they're encountering and they have no other choice than to migrate to the north.

What a horrible crisis. We must have compassion in our laws and policies.

-Angela Valenzuela

Happy Fathers Day! Happy Word Refugee Day 2021!

As many of us celebrate Father's Day today, let's also be mindful that today is World Refugee Day, as well. Thanks to Barbara Peña of Raíces, Texas, for this reminder.

We totally need human policies for asylum seekers and refugees, as a staggering tens of millions annually of people are regularly displaced from their homes due to "violence, persecution, hunger, climate disasters, poverty, and political upheaval," as noted below. 

Just like we wish and seek for ourselves and our own families, they deserve a life of dignity and respect. 

Like Mahatma Ghandi once said, “The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.” This points directly to the virtue of being compassionate toward others if we ourselves are to be humane in our policies and practices.

Happy Fathers Day! Happy Word Refugee Day 2021!

Peace and blessings to all.

-Angela Valenzuela

@RAICESTEXAS

More than 80 million people have been displaced from their homes globally. Many, including unaccompanied children, are fleeing violence, persecution, hunger, climate disasters, poverty, and political upheaval.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Refugee Convention¹ – but despite a decades-long international commitment to protect those who are in fear of persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, or political opinion, the U.S. government turns away asylum seekers and refugees, and continues to criminalize migration.

The COVID-19 pandemic only made things worse. Processing inefficiencies at the U.S. southern border, coupled with policies like the Migrant Protection Protocols and Title 42 that prevent migrants from entering the country and supercharge mass expulsions, have eroded what once were robust laws that protected people’s right to seek refuge in the U.S.

This World Refugee Day, and every day, RAICES stands in solidarity with those whose lives have been uprooted and who are seeking safety and refuge here in the U.S. It is our mission to uplift their stories and create a more welcoming country for refugees and asylum seekers.

It is in this spirit of resilience and courage that we share this video with you. It is a beautiful testament to the power of storytelling as a vehicle for change.

Watch the video and then click on the link below to help us build a people first approach to migration that welcomes everyone.

See video here.

Click here to commit to uplifting the stories of refugees and asylum seekers by joining the Uprooted & Uplifted campaign.

The more people who join the campaign, the more power we build to make the dream of building an immigration system that treats all human beings with dignity and respect a reality.

In solidarity,

Barbara Peña
Associate VP of Advocacy
RAICES

PS: You can also support our work by making a monthly gift. With your support, we can model a humanitarian approach to migration through our legal, social, and advocacy programs and keep up the fight to make our borders more welcoming places.

References:

1. The UN Refugee Agency, "The 1951 Refugee Convention."
   Accessed June 17, 2021.

Staggering Number of Hysterectomies Happening at ICE Facility, Whistleblower Says

What the heck?! This whole sordid, Nazi-like, human-experimentation story from a whistle blower who alleges as much merits a close read. This whole story reeks of violence, brutality, neglect, and abuse. If any piece of this is true, those in power should be held to account.

God forbid that any woman experience forced sterilization as a matter of de facto, unchecked government policy and practice.

Do consider signing this petition to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp on change.org titled, "END FORCED HYSTERECTOMIES AND ABOLISH ICE." Here is the specific language of the petition: 

This is horrific, my friends.  Let's tell Gov. Kemp to investigate this complaint and do something immediately about any and pieces of this story that are true.

-Angela Valenzuela

Staggering Number of Hysterectomies Happening at ICE Facility, Whistleblower Says

"We’ve questioned among ourselves, like, goodness, he's taking everybody’s stuff out," said a former nurse at the facility. "That's his specialty, he’s the uterus collector."

CS

By Carter Sherman

September 14, 2020, 5:39pm

 This is a developing story. To what fates, I wonder? How will they now be cared for? Certainly, when advocates say that we should free these children and families, it's not to precarity that puts them at great risk.  

So concerning.

-Angela Valenzuela

8,800 migrant kids were kicked out of the US under coronavirus border restrictions

By Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN

Updated 8:10 PM ET, Fri September 11, 2020

(CNN) Nearly 9,000 unaccompanied migrant children have been kicked out of the United States without court hearings under the Trump administration's coronavirus restrictions at the border.

A court declaration Friday from US Border Patrol Deputy Chief Raul Ortiz revealed the number, which previously hadn't been released to the public.

Since the Trump administration invoked a public health law to implement new restrictions at the border on March 20, the agency has expelled more than 159,000 people, according to Ortiz. That figure, Ortiz says, included 8,800 children who were traveling alone and 7,600 family members.

The Border Patrol official's filing, first reported by CBS News, reveals new details about who has been kicked out of the US under the sweeping public health restrictions, which largely bar migrants from entering the country.

The declaration was filed as part of the government's appeal of a recent court ruling over a controversial aspect of the coronavirus restrictions: the increasing use of hotels to detain migrant kids rather than licensed and monitored facilities.

Immigrant and civil rights advocates have warned that the secretive system is putting kids in danger. They have criticized the administration for using public health claims as a pretext to impose harsh immigration restrictions.

Last week, US District Judge Dolly M. Gee ruled that detaining migrant children in hotels wasn't safe and did not "adequately account for the vulnerability of unaccompanied minors in detention." She has ordered the government to stop the practice by September 15.

But Ortiz and other US officials argue that doing so will put the public at risk, interfere with efforts by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to contain Covid-19 and increase the likelihood that US Customs and Border Protection agents and others caring for children in custody could contract coronavirus. They are asking California's 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to block Gee's order.

In his declaration on Friday, Ortiz stated that being forced to stop detaining migrant children in hotels would cause "three significant problems" for the government: crowding and an increased risk of Covid-19 exposure in Border Patrol facilities, an increased risk of Covid-19 exposure in Health and Human Services and Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities and the straining of an "already overburdened system."

 The essence of evil. Listen to Jacob Soboroff who draws on the the United Nations' definition and describes what our government did to these parents and families seeking asylum in the U.S.—to ultimately, over 5,400 children—as "torture." Based on a show of hands of numerous people that met at the white house that included Mike Pompeo, Alex Azar, the American Academy of Pediatrics referred to this as "government-sanctioned child abuse," with serious, "irreversible" consequences, as noted by the American College of Physicians.

Though Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen did not raise her hand to Miller's request for a vote, we must note that

"No one in the meeting made the case that separating families would be inhumane or immoral, the officials said. Any moral argument about immigration "fell on deaf ears" inside the White House, one of the officials said."

Such appalling cruelty. Yet where is the justice?

Let's vote this brutal, fascist regime out of office, my friends.

-Angela Valenzuela

Trump Cabinet officials voted in 2018 White House meeting to separate migrant children, say officials

"If we don't enforce this, it is the end of our country as we kno

White House policy adviser Stephen Miller at the Ohio Republican 

Party State Dinner in Columbus in 2018.Leah Millis / Reuters file

Aug. 20, 2020, 2:15 PM CDT 2:15 PM CDT

By Julia Ainsley and Jacob Soboroff

WASHINGTON — In early May 2018, after weeks of phone calls and private meetings, 11 of the president's most senior advisers were called to the White House Situation Room, where they were asked, by a show-of-hands vote, to decide the fate of thousands of migrant parents and their children, according to two officials who were there.

President Donald Trump's senior adviser Stephen Miller led the meeting, and, according to the two officials, he was angry at what he saw as defiance by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

It had been nearly a month since Jeff Sessions, then the attorney general, had launched the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy, announcing that every immigrant who crossed the U.S. border illegally would be prosecuted, including parents with small children. But so far, U.S. border agents had not begun separating parents from their children to put the plan into action, and Miller, the architect of the administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants, was furious about the delay.

Those invited included Sessions, Nielsen, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and newly installed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to documents obtained by NBC News.

Trump cabinet officials voted in 2018 meeting to separate migrant children, say officials

AUG. 20, 202003:55

Nielsen told those at the meeting that there were simply not enough resources at DHS, nor at the other agencies that would be involved, to be able to separate parents, prosecute them for crossing the border and return them to their children in a timely manner, according to the two officials who were present. Without a swift process, the children would enter into the custody of Health and Human Services, which was already operating at near capacity.

Two officials involved in the planning of "zero tolerance" said the Justice Department acknowledged on multiple occasions that U.S. attorneys would not be able to prosecute all parents expeditiously, so sending children to HHS was the most likely outcome.

As Nielsen had said repeatedly to other officials in the weeks leading up to the meeting, according to two former officials, the process could get messy and children could get lost in an already clogged system.

Two years later: Family separations at the border

JULY 12, 202004:43

Miller saw the separation of families not as an unfortunate byproduct but as a tool to deter more immigration. According to three former officials, he had devised plans that would have separated even more children. Miller, with the support of Sessions, advocated for separating all immigrant families, even those going through civil court proceedings, the former officials said.

While zero tolerance ultimately separated nearly 3,000 children from their parents, what Miller proposed would have separated 25,000 more, including those who legally presented themselves at ports of entry seeking asylum, according to Customs and Border Protection data from May and June 2018.

That plan never came to fruition, in large part because DHS officials had argued it would grind the immigration process to a halt. But after Sessions' announcement that all families entering illegally would be prosecuted, the onus had fallen on DHS to act.

Nielsen claims 'there was no policy to separate families' of migrants

JULY 23, 202002:38

At the meeting, Miller accused anyone opposing zero tolerance of being a lawbreaker and un-American, according to the two officials present.

"If we don't enforce this, it is the end of our country as we know it," Miller said, according to the two officials. It was not unusual for Miller to make claims like that, but this time he was adamant that the policy move forward, regardless of arguments about resources and logistics.

No one in the meeting made the case that separating families would be inhumane or immoral, the officials said. Any moral argument about immigration "fell on deaf ears" inside the White House, one of the officials said.

"Miller was tired of hearing about logistical problems," one of the officials said. "It was just 'Let's move forward and staff will figure this out.'"

Frustrated, Miller accused Nielsen of stalling and demanded a show of hands. Who was in favor of moving forward? he asked.

A sea of hands went up. Nielsen kept hers down. It was clear she had been outvoted, according to the officials.

In the days immediately following the meeting, Nielsen had a conversation with Kevin McAleenan, then the Customs and Border Patrol commissioner, in her office at the Ronald Reagan Building and then signed a memo instructing DHS personnel to prosecute all migrants crossing the border illegally, including parents arriving with their children.

Nielsen did so despite her stated reservations in the Situation Room and her having been warned in a legal memo by DHS General Counsel John Mitnick — which was also sent to her chief of staff at the time, Chad Wolf, who is now the acting secretary of DHS — that the decision would result in separation of families. Of the practice, Mitnick wrote, "a court could conclude that the separations are violative of the INA, Administrative Procedure Act, or the Fifth Amendment Due Process clause."

Less than two months later, Trump signed an executive order halting family separations and a federal judge in California ordered family reunifications on the grounds that the separated families' due process rights were violated.

At the time, no plan was in place to track the children who had been separated or to create a system to reunite thousands of separated families, according to the two former officials.

According to an invitation list obtained by NBC News, those expected to be in attendance at the meeting included: Sessions, Nielsen, Miller, Pompeo, Azar, Undersecretary of Defense John Rood, then-White House chief of staff John Kelly, White House deputy chief of staff Chris Liddell, then-White House counsel Don McGahn and Marc Short, who was then director of legislative affairs and is now chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence.

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Asked about the show-of-hands vote, Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, said, "This is absolutely not true and did not happen."

In response to a request for a comment about the meeting and the show of hands, HHS spokesman Michael Caputo said, "This never happened."

The State Department and DHS referred NBC News to the White House. Sessions, Nielsen, Kelly and John Bolton did not respond to requests for comment. McGahn and Rood could not be reached for comment.

Before Trump ended zero tolerance by executive order on June 20, 2018, over 2,800 children had been separated from their parents. When a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to begin reuniting the families it had separated, it became clear that there was no method to track both parent and child as they moved through the system. As a result, some took months to reunite, and, in hundreds of cases, parents were deported from the U.S. without their children.

On May 4, Gary Tomasulo, who was then the senior director for border and transportation security on the National Security Council, sent an email to the deputies and lower-level staffers tasked with carrying out immigration policy, telling them that their bosses had agreed to the new zero tolerance prosecution and separation policy and that they needed to develop plans to support it.

At the time, some of the subordinates to the Cabinet secretaries who were responsible for carrying out zero tolerance had raised moral objections, according to a source familiar with the discussions.

In the email, obtained by NBC News, Tomasulo told the deputies and other subordinates that their bosses "acknowledged that there are no easy solutions, but remained committed to collectively do everything possible to develop innovative solutions that leverage the full resources, capabilities, and authorities of the U.S. government."

He went on to say, "I ask that if you are unable to participate in these meetings, the message of commitment and resolve expressed by our principals is communicated and internalized by those that represent your departments and agencies."

Julia Ainsley

Julia Ainsley is a correspondent covering the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Jacob Soboroff

Jacob Soboroff is a correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC and author of the New York Times bestseller "Separated: Inside an American Tragedy."