Trump admin must facilitate another deportee's return, judge orders
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Demonstrators picket for the release of immigrants detained by ICE at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island, on May 15. Photo: by Joseph Prezioso / AFP via Getty Images
A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a gay Guatemalan man who was deported to Mexico despite him saying he had faced violence there.
The big picture: The order to facilitate the return of yet another deportee in a case with similarities to that of Kilmar Armando Ábrego García's battle for release marks an escalation in pressure on the Department of Homeland Security amid its high-speed deportation push.
Catch up quick: The deportee, identified in court filings by the initials O.C.G., was granted withholding from removal status by an immigration judge in February. The status barred deportation to his home country of Guatemala, the complaint stated.
- Around two days later, per the complaint, he was placed on a bus to Mexico, where he had allegedly previously been raped and held hostage. When he arrived, he was given a choice between going to another facility in Mexico to wait to apply for asylum or being taken to Guatemala.
- O.C.G. chose to return to Guatemala, where he has since been living in hiding, the complaint said.
Driving the news: The government previously said O.C.G. had stated he was not afraid to return to Mexico, despite the violence he had experienced, but it later admitted an "error" had been made in the proceedings.
- On May 16, the government conceded that it could not identify any officer who had asked the man if he had a fear of returning to Mexico.
- "[I]t must be said that, while mistakes obviously happen, the events leading up to this decision are troubling," District Judge Brian E. Murphy wrote in his order. "The Court was given false information, upon which it relied, twice, to the detriment of a party at risk of serious and irreparable harm."
He ordered the government to take "all immediate steps" to facilitate the man's return and said it must update the court on the status of its efforts within five days of the order.
Worth noting: O.C.G. is one of four plaintiffs in a class action suit against the government for its practice of deporting or seeking to deport people to countries never designated for removal without providing them notice or an opportunity to contest the removal over fear of persecution or harm.
What they're saying: "In general, this case presents no special facts or legal circumstances, only the banal horror of a man being wrongfully loaded onto a bus and sent back to a country where he was allegedly just raped and kidnapped," wrote Murphy, acknowledging no one suggested the man posed a security threat.
- In the footnotes of his order, Murphy said facilitating the deportee's return in this context "should carry less baggage" than in other notable cases, presumably such as Ábrego García, adding the man at the center of his case is "not held by any foreign government."
Go deeper: How the Trump administration justifies not returning Abrego Garcia to the U.S.
