Kentucky Attorney General, press group ask state Supreme Court to unseal records in deportation-related custody case

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman and the Kentucky Press Association have asked the Kentucky Supreme Court to order unsealing of confidential records connected to a family court custody dispute that became entangled with deportation proceedings, according to a report by Kentucky Lantern published Monday.

The case centers on a 15-month-old child identified in the report as a U.S. citizen who was born in Louisville. The report says a Louisville judge ordered the toddler returned to her mother shortly before the mother and child were deported to Guatemala, setting off a court fight over what should remain sealed and what could be disclosed to the public and press.

In its request to the state’s highest court, the Kentucky Attorney General and the Kentucky Press Association are seeking access to the confidential files related to the underlying family court proceedings, the report states. The petition focuses on transparency in the judicial process while the case continues to move through the legal system.

The report characterizes the custody and deportation sequence as a “tragic case” and frames the records as confidential under current court handling, rather than as material already publicly available. It does not indicate that the Supreme Court has ruled yet on the unsealing request, leaving the scope of any disclosure pending review by the justices.

The procedural posture described by Kentucky Lantern suggests the unsealing request is being litigated as a separate issue from the merits of the custody determinations themselves. That distinction matters because even where family court matters are typically protected, the question of whether documents can be made public often hinges on specific findings about privacy, safety, and the public’s interest in open courts.