⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

The Ninth Circuit considers a decades-old court order protecting unaccompanied immigrant children. Children in immigration custody may face a choice between agreeing to leave the country and pursuing a hearing or other protection. The concern is that a child may give up those options without understanding them. The order requires understandable rights notices before the departure option is presented. Depending on the child's circumstances, it requires a chance to call, or actual contact with an adult or legal-services organization. The government asked to end this oversight, citing changes in immigration law. The district judge refused, and also barred a new government advisal. The government is appealing. A key provision, Section 1252(f)(1), limits lower courts' power to grant class-wide injunctions restraining certain immigration operations. Another law, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, or TVPRA, sets procedures tailored to unaccompanied children. The government's lawyer will argue that the injunction directly interferes with operations protected by the first law. The children's lawyer will argue that it enforces separate child protections, with only a collateral, or indirect, effect on those operations. Rule 60(b)(5) allows an old order to be revisited if continued enforcement is no longer equitable; an injunction does not expire just because it is old.

Perez-Funez v. Crosland (No. 26-2787) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, argued October 22, 2026.