Two migrants rights groups sued the US on Tuesday in an effort to stop the deportation of three children to El Salvador.

The Capital Area Immigrants Rights Coalition and the Justice Action Center filed suit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of three minor children who are facing deportation to El Salvador, claiming that such removal would violate the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process clause as well as the Flores Settlement agreement (FSA), the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (HSA) and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA).

The children, three minor siblings, are currently being held in a shelter in Maryland pending deportation to El Salvador despite a request by their father, who lives in Maryland, that they be released into his custody.

The children and their mother had fled El Salvador after receiving death treats from the MS-13 gang, which suspected the children’s father of collaborating against the gang with the police. They had been denied asylum at the Mexico-Texas border.

Upon denial, the children’s mother had then sent the children across the border unaccompanied, where they were intercepted by the Office of Refugee Resettlement and placed in the shelter where they are currently being held.

In their complaint, the children contend that deportation would put them in a dangerous situation because of a lack of adult relatives in El Salvador who could care for them and the still present threat on their lives from members of the MS-13 gangs.

They also argue that the US government’s removal order violates not only due process since there is no compelling reason for refusing to release the children to their father’s custody, but also the FSA, HSA and TVPRA, all of which favor a release of the children into the father’s custody instead of deportation to El Salvador.