A T&T-born US judge has blocked Don­ald Trump’s de­por­ta­tion or­der on un­ac­com­pa­nied chil­dren.

Dis­trict Judge Sparkle Sook­nanan made glob­al head­lines on Sun­day with the de­ci­sion. Born in San Fer­nan­do, Sook­nanan went to Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School. She re­ceived her B.S., sum­ma cum laude, from St. Fran­cis Col­lege in 2002, her M.B.A., with dis­tinc­tion, from Hof­s­tra Uni­ver­si­ty in 2003, and her J.D., sum­ma cum laude, from Brook­lyn Law School in 2010.

Sook­nanan was ap­point­ed to the Dis­trict Court in Jan­u­ary.

With mi­grant chil­dren wait­ing on tar­ma­cs to be sent to their na­tive Guatemala, Sook­nanan tem­porar­i­ly blocked the flights, sid­ing with at­tor­neys for the chil­dren who said the gov­ern­ment was break­ing laws and send­ing their clients to po­ten­tial per­il.

The ex­tra­or­di­nary dra­ma played out overnight on a hol­i­day week­end and vault­ed from tar­ma­cs in Texas to a court­room in Wash­ing­ton. It was the lat­est show­down over the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s crack­down on im­mi­gra­tion — and the lat­est clash be­tween the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s en­force­ment ef­forts and le­gal safe­guards that Con­gress cre­at­ed for vul­ner­a­ble mi­grants.

Guatemalan chil­dren who ar­rived at the bor­der with­out their par­ents or guardians will stay for at least two weeks while the le­gal fight un­folds, ac­cord­ing to the rul­ing.

“I do not want there to be any am­bi­gu­i­ty,” said Sook­nanan.

Min­utes af­ter her hasti­ly sched­uled hear­ing, five char­ter bus­es pulled up to a plane at Val­ley In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Har­lin­gen, Texas, a hub for de­por­ta­tion flights. Hours ear­li­er, au­thor­i­ties had walked dozens of pas­sen­gers to­ward the plane in an area re­strict­ed to gov­ern­ment planes. Pas­sen­gers wore coloured cloth­ing typ­i­cal­ly used in gov­ern­ment-run shel­ters for mi­grant chil­dren.

All 76 chil­dren on the planes were ex­pect­ed to have been re­turned to shel­ters over­seen by the U.S. De­part­ment of Health and Hu­man Ser­vice,, the Jus­tice De­part­ment said in a court fil­ing.

“This idea that on a long week­end in the dead of night they would wake up these vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren and put them on a plane ir­re­spec­tive of the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tions that they had is some­thing that should shock the con­science of all Amer­i­cans,” said Ki­ca Matos, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Im­mi­gra­tion Law Cen­ter, which rep­re­sents the chil­dren.

The Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty De­part­ment did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to a re­quest for com­ment on the rul­ing.

The ad­min­is­tra­tion in­sist­ed it was re­unit­ing the Guatemalan chil­dren — at the Cen­tral Amer­i­can na­tion’s re­quest — with par­ents or guardians who sought their re­turn. Lawyers for at least some of the chil­dren say that’s un­true and ar­gue that in any event, au­thor­i­ties still would have to fol­low a le­gal process that they did not.