Trump administration says it will fly migrant back to U.S. after judge rules his deportation "ignored" due process

CBS News

a day ago

The federal government is working to secure a charter flight to return a man who was removed from the U.S. back to America so he can have proper due process proceedings, the Justice Department said in court documents filed Wednesday.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy ordered the man, only known by the initials O.C.G., to be returned to the United States after he found that necessary due process steps in his removal proceedings were "ignored" by the Trump administration.
O.C.G.'s attorneys argued that he has no criminal history and sought asylum in the United States after multiple violent attacks against him in his native country of Guatemala.
In March 2024, O.C.G. entered the United States illegally and was deported. After making it back to the United States again last year, he presented himself to Border Patrol for asylum proceedings. An immigration judge found in February 2025 that O.C.G. would face serious harm if he were sent back to Guatemala and ordered a "withholding of removal" that barred deportation back to his home country.
Two days after the immigration judge's February decision, O.C.G. says he was placed on a bus and removed without due process to Mexico, where his attorneys said he was previously held for random and raped during his second attempt to get to the United States. He submitted evidence at his immigration hearing of his experiences in Mexico, and as a result the immigration judge said that O.C.G. could not be removed to a country other than Guatemala without additional due process.
After O.C.G. was sent to Mexico by the United States, Mexican authorities removed him to Guatemala, where he remains in hiding, according to court documents.
"[The] immigration judge told O.C.G.— consistent with this Court's understanding of the law—that he could not be removed to a country other than his native Guatemala, at least not without some additional steps in the process," Murphy wrote in his order last week. "Those necessary steps, and O.C.G.'s pleas for help, were ignored."
Murphy had previously ordered additional fact finding in the case, after the Trump administration submitted a declaration under oath that O.C.G. told government officials that he had no fear of being sent to Mexico. O.C.G had previously submitted a declaration to the court stating that he was told at the last minute before his removal that he was being sent to Mexico, and that he was denied a request to speak to his attorneys beforehand.
The Justice Department admitted to Murphy that there was no witness who could verify the government's account of O.C.G.'s removal under oath and the declaration was made in error.
"The only evidence before the Court therefore is O.C.G.'s uncontroverted assertion that he was given no notice of his transfer to Mexico and no opportunity to explain why it would be dangerous to send him there," Murphy wrote in his order mandating the man's return.
"Defendants' retraction of their prior sworn statement makes inexorable the already-strong conclusion that O.C.G. is likely to succeed in showing that his removal lacked any semblance of due process," the judge added.
The Trump administration's push to ramp up deportations has drawn other scrutiny from other federal judges who argue deportees aren't being given enough due process.
Another judge ordered the Trump administration to "facilitate" the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the government admitted was sent to El Salvador in error. The Supreme Court affirmed that ruling, but Abrego Garcia remains in a Salvadoran prison, and the Trump administration says it's up to that country's government to return him.