After closely reporting on the Trump administration’s late-night efforts to remove Guatemalan children from U.S. government custody, Rebecca Santana, Valerie Gonzalez and Sonia Pérez D. still had questions. What was Guatemala’s role? How were the children, woken up in the middle of the night and almost removed from the country, doing?
To recreate what happened, they dug up new reporting on an unpublished report about Guatemala’s efforts to talk to parents, undercutting U.S. arguments that families wanted the children back. Santana talked to lawyers who described how scared the kids were. Gonzalez spoke with lawyers who said elementary-aged children were among those woken up, undermining the argument that this was an operation aimed at those turning 18 soon.
The three reporters relied on sources and trust they had developed covering children’s issues in immigration, and the expertise they have built over years, to shed new light on the efforts.
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