Honduran

A 24-year-old Honduran man who was fleeing federal immigration agents in Virginia died on a highway after being struck by a vehicle.

The death of Josué Castro Rivera follows recent incidents in which three other immigrants in Chicago and California were killed during immigration enforcement operations under the Trump administration’s crackdown.

Castro Rivera was headed to a gardening job Thursday when his vehicle was pulled over by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, brother Henry Castro said.

Agents tried to detain Castro Rivera and the three other passengers, and he fled on foot, tried to cross Interstate 264 in Norfolk and was fatally struck, according to state and federal authorities.

Castro Rivera came to the United States four years ago and was working to send money to family in Honduras, according to his brother.

“He had a very good heart,” Castro said Sunday.

The Department of Homeland Security said Castro Rivera’s vehicle was stopped by ICE as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based” operation and passengers were detained for allegedly living in the country without legal permission.

DHS said in a statement that Castro Rivera “resisted heavily and fled” and died after a passing vehicle struck him. DHS officials did not respond Sunday to requests for further comment.

Virginia State Police said officers responded to a report of a vehicle-pedestrian crash around 11 a.m. Thursday on eastbound I-264 at the Military Highway interchange. Police said Castro Rivera was hit by a 2002 Ford pickup and was pronounced dead at the scene.

The crash remains under investigation.

Federal authorities and state police gave his first name as Jose, but family members said it was Josué. DHS and state police did not explain the discrepancy.

Castro called his brother’s death an injustice and said he is raising money to transport the body back to Honduras for the funeral.

“He didn’t deserve everything that happened to him,” Castro said.

DHS blamed Castro Rivera’s death on “a direct result of every politician, activist and reporter who continue to spread propaganda and misinformation about ICE’s mission and ways to avoid detention.”

Similar deaths amid immigration operations elsewhere have triggered protests, lawsuits and calls for investigation amid claims that the Trump administration’s initial accounts are misleading.

Last month in suburban Chicago, federal immigration agents fatally shot a Mexican man during a traffic stop. DHS initially said a federal officer was “seriously injured,” but police body camera video showed the federal officer walking around and describing his own injuries as “ nothing major.”

In July, a farmworker who fell from a greenhouse roof during a chaotic ICE raid at a California cannabis facility died of his injuries. And in August, a man ran away from federal agents onto a freeway in the same state and was fatally struck by a vehicle.

Tareen and Walling write for the Associated Press.

TUCSON — A federal judge in Arizona temporarily blocked the Trump administration from removing dozens of Guatemalan and Honduran children living in shelters or foster care after coming to the U.S. alone, according to a decision Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Rosemary Márquez in Tucson extended until at least Sept. 26 a temporary restraining issued over the Labor Day weekend. Márquez raised concern over whether the government had arranged for any of the children’s parents or legal guardians in Guatemala to take custody of them.

Laura Belous, attorney for the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, which represents the children, said in court that the minors had expressed no desire to be repatriated to their native Guatemala and Honduras amid concerns they could face neglect, possible child trafficking or hardships associated with individual medical conditions.

Lawyers for the children said that their clients have said they fear going home, and that the government is not following laws designed to protect migrant children.

A legal aid group filed a lawsuit in Arizona on behalf of 57 Guatemalan children and 12 from Honduras between the ages of 3 and 17.

Denise Ann Faulk, an assistant U.S. attorney under the Trump administration, emphasized that the child repatriations were negotiated at high diplomatic levels and would avoid lengthy prohibitions on returning to the U.S.

Nearly all the children were in the custody of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement and living at shelters in the Phoenix and Tucson areas. Similar lawsuits filed in Illinois and Washington seek to stop the government from removing the children.

The Arizona lawsuit demands that the government grant the children their right to present their cases to an immigration judge, to have access to legal counsel and to be placed in the least restrictive setting that is in their best interest.

The Trump administration has argued it is acting in the best interest of the children by trying to reunite them with their families at the behest of the Guatemalan government. After Guatemalan officials toured U.S. detention facilities, the government said that it was “very concerned” and that it would take children who wanted to return voluntarily.

Children began crossing the border alone in large numbers in 2014, peaking at 152,060 in the 2022 fiscal year. July’s arrest tally translates to an annual clip of 5,712 arrests, reflecting how illegal crossings have dropped to their lowest levels in six decades.

Guatemalans accounted for 32% of residents at government-run holding facilities last year, followed by Hondurans, Mexicans and Salvadorans. A 2008 law requires children to appear before an immigration judge with an opportunity to pursue asylum, unless they are from Canada and Mexico. The vast majority are released from shelters to parents, legal guardians or immediate family while their cases wind through court.

The Arizona lawsuit was amended to include 12 children from Honduras who have expressed to an Arizona legal aid group that they do not want to return to Honduras, as well as four additional children from Guatemala who have come into government custody in Arizona since the lawsuit was initially filed Aug. 30.

Judge Márquez said she found it “frightening” that U.S. officials may not have coordinated with the children’s parents. She also expressed concern that the government was denying the children access to review by an experienced immigration judge, and noted that legal representatives for the children were notified of preparations for child departures with little notice, late at night.

“On a practical matter, it just seems that a lot of these things that [the Office of Refugee Resettlement] has taken upon themselves to do — such as screening and making judicial determinations that should be made by an immigration judge with expertise and time to meet with a lawyer and meet with a child — is just surpassed by saying ‘we’re reuniting them’” with parents, Márquez said in court as she pressed Faulk for more information.

Billeaud and Lee write for the Associated Press.

A legal aid group has sued to preemptively block any efforts by the U.S. government to deport a dozen Honduran children, saying it had “credible” information that such plans were quietly in the works.

The Arizona-based Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, known as FIRRP, on Friday added Honduran children to a lawsuit filed last weekend that resulted in a judge temporarily blocking the deportation of dozens of migrant children to their native Guatemala.

In a statement, the organization said it had received reports that the U.S. government will “imminently move forward with a plan to illegally remove Honduran children in government custody as soon as this weekend, in direct violation of their right to seek protection in the United States and despite ongoing litigation that blocked similar attempted extra-legal removals for children from Guatemala.”

FIRRP did not immediately provide the Associated Press with details about what information it had received about the possible deportation of Honduran children. The amendment to the organization’s lawsuit is sealed in federal court. The Homeland Security Department did not immediately respond to email requests for comment Friday and Saturday.

Over Labor Day weekend, the Trump administration attempted to remove Guatemalan children who had come to the U.S. alone and were living in shelters or with foster care families in the U.S.

Advocates who represent migrant children in court filed lawsuits across the country seeking to stop the government from removing the children, and on Sunday a federal judge stepped in to order that the kids stay in the U.S. for at least two weeks.

Children began crossing the border alone in large numbers in 2014, peaking at 152,060 in the 2022 fiscal year. July’s arrest tally translates to an annual clip of 5,712 arrests, reflecting how illegal crossings have dropped to their lowest levels in six decades.

Guatemalans accounted for 32% of residents at government-run holding facilities last year, followed by Hondurans, Mexicans and Salvadorans. A 2008 law requires children to appear before an immigration judge with an opportunity to pursue asylum, unless they are from Canada and Mexico. The vast majority are released from shelters to parents, legal guardians or immediate family while their cases wind through court.

The lawsuit was amended to include 12 children from Honduras who have expressed to the Florence Project that they do not want to return to Honduras, as well as four additional children from Guatemala who have come into government custody in Arizona since the suit was initially filed last week.

Some children have parents who are already in the United States.

The lawsuit demands that the government allow the children their legal right to present their cases to an immigration judge, have access to legal counsel and be placed in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the child.

Willingham writes for the Associated Press.