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a day ago
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J.D. Vance's campaign plane carried anti-immigrant rhetoric. Now it carries shackled deportees
SIERRA VISTA, ARIZONA - AUGUST 01: Republican vice presidential nominee U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) boards his plane as he departs Arizona following a tour of the U.S. southern border with Mexica, on August 01, 2024 in Sierra Vista, Arizona. Vance was visiting the border on the final stop of his first visit to the Southwest as a vice presidential candidate. (Photo by) After Donald Trump tapped him as his running mate, J.D. Vance crisscrossed the country and gave speech after speech in which he, like Trump, demonized immigrants and promised to mount a mass deportation effort if elected. The Boeing 737 that he used to travel around the nation is now being used to deport immigrants. Records show that it has made at least 16 flights to Central and South American countries to deport immigrants this year. An Arizona Mirror analysis of publicly available data and records obtained by the University of Washington through Freedom of Information Act requests confirms that the 22-year-old jet is part of the fleet of planes known as 'ICE Air' that swiftly shuttles immigrants out of the United States. ICE Air consists of multiple charter airlines and other private aviation companies around the country who are contracted to move immigrant detainees inside and out of the country. Even before the plane was emblazoned with the Trump campaign logo in July 2024, it had been used at least four times to transport immigrant detainees during an earlier stint on the ICE Air fleet. Data analyzed by the Mirror and confirmed by University of Washington Center for Human Rights researcher Phil Neff show that the aircraft flew four ICE Air missions in April and May of 2018. Those four missions consisted of three removal flights to El Salvador and Guatemala, in which deportees were shipped off to those countries. The fourth was a transfer flight, in which detainees were moved from one ICE facility to another. During those four missions in 2018, the aircraft carried between 456 to 504 passengers, according to ICE passenger data. And records from 2020 detail 35 flights from known ICE hubs to Central and South American countries. For example, on March 6, 2020, the aircraft took off from the Alexandria Airport in Louisiana, where ICE has a staging facility operated by private contractor GEO Group. It then landed at the José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport in Guayaquil, Ecuador, before returning to Alexandria. Earlier this year, that same airport was where military planes deported migrants. Data on flights after 2018 is more difficult to confirm. ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security began redacting identifying information of the aircraft used in the deportation process, making it more difficult to see the movements of individual planes, though it is still possible in some cases. In its response to questions from the Arizona Mirror, which DHS provided after this story was published, an unnamed 'senior DHS official' said that the department would not confirm whether the plane had been used for deportation flights. 'ICE uses sub-contractors to help carry out its mission to deport illegal aliens,' the unnamed official said in an email. 'These sub-contractors are not exclusive to ICE. For operational security, we will not confirm tail numbers of planes used for removing illegal aliens who are often violent criminals and foreign terrorists.' Claims that most of the Trump administration's deportees are violent criminals have been repeatedly proven false. Civil rights groups have been fighting for records about the program, while the agency regularly slow-walks records releases. 'Our experience in general with FOIAs — not just with the Department of Homeland Security, but especially with the Department of Homeland Security — is you should expect to have to sue to get information and for us that process involves getting approval from the highest level of the university,' Neff told the Mirror. 'So, we have had to be very selective in the case in which we have had to do that.' Just five months after Trump and Vance won the election, the aircraft flew between multiple airports known for ICE Air activity before heading to an airport in Honduras known for deportation flights, then coming to rest at Mesa Gateway Airport. It is not clear if Trump or Vance were aware of the aircraft's history prior to it becoming part of their campaign. A spokesperson for the White House directed the Mirror to the Department of Homeland Security and Vance's office. Vance and DHS did not respond. The aircraft, N917XA, has a long and interesting history. It started its life in the fleet of the now defunct Air Berlin before transferring to Orenair, another ill-fated airline based in Russia, until it was acquired by Swift Air. Swift Air was a subcontractor for ICE and has previously conducted flights out of Mesa Gateway Airport, one of ICE's major airport hubs. Flight history shows the plane has made multiple flights to and from Mesa Gateway to other ICE airport hubs, as well as to Central and South American countries. A previous inspector general report listed the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway airport as the operational headquarters for ICE Air. Swift Air rebranded as iAero Airways in 2019, but went bankrupt in 2024. Eastern Air Express acquired much of iAero's assets, including N917XA, in April 2024. Three months later, it was unveiled as Vance's campaign jet. Eastern Air Express has also taken over the ICE Air contracts that iAero held. The company also has connections to the Trump world. From 1989 to 1992, Trump owned an airline company called 'Trump Shuttle,' which he purchased after meeting the Eastern Air Express CEO at a party. But the endeavor, like so many of Trump's businesses, was financially doomed and failed. ICE Air operations in Arizona are beginning to ramp up as well, with Avelo Airlines starting to make deportation flights out of Mesa Gateway this month, amid financial woes and market competition. Contracts to conduct deportation flights are lucrative for the companies involved. The Project on Government Oversight has reported that CSI Aviation, whose corporate director was a 'fake elector' in New Mexico for Trump, was awarded a no-bid contract to the tune of $128 million. Neff said he wasn't surprised to learn that the aircraft which had been used for deportations had been utilized by the Trump campaign, although he did say there was an 'irony to it.' During their research, Neff said they found that some of the contractors would often boast about how they could turn aircraft around from passenger style to luxury style on short notice, even finding aircraft that had previously been used for deportations later being used to shuttle professional sports teams or musicians around the country. Immigrant advocates have been critical of the flights and say they raise a number of human rights and civil rights issues. Neff said those concerns are only being exacerbated by the Trump administration's push to speed up deportations. 'I think it is really impossible to overstate or understand the true scope of human impacts of a deportation program on this scale,' Neff said. During their initial research, which covered flights between 2010 and 2020, Neff said they found a 'significant portion' of the passengers being deported still had ongoing cases that had not worked their way through the courts. The Trump administration has recently been defending its use of the Alien Enemies Act, the 1798 law that was last used during World War II to intern Japanese Americans, to do rapid deportations. Once on the planes, immigrants are shackled at their feet and hands for the duration of the flight. In testimony in a class action lawsuit against the United States, where passengers were shackled for 23 hours sitting on the tarmac, some soiled themselves as they were denied access to the bathroom. Abuse on ICE Air flights have been reported going back to 2016, when some passengers were left bloodied after being beaten and placed in body-bag style restraints. In some cases, deaths and miscarriages have been reported on ICE Air flights. And transparency about the flights is getting worse, Neff noted. While the first round of data obtained by researchers contained information such as flight destinations, flight costs and the tail numbers of aircraft, the government redacted that information from future releases. While public flight history data is available to researchers, those researchers are working overtime to help track these flights. 'It is 8 or 10 hours, 7 days a week. It is a significant amount of time,' immigration activist Tom Cartwright, who has been voluntarily tracking ICE flights since Trump's first term, told the Mirror. During that time, Cartwright has noticed that tracking the aircraft has gotten considerably more difficult, as federal agencies have sought to stymie watchdogs from monitoring the program by removing their aircraft from flight-tracking services. But Cartwright and others have still found other ways to keep a watchful eye on the program. 'The transparency has gotten worse over time and worse under the (second) Trump administration,' Cartwright said, adding that taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent. 'To send some of these flights with relatively few people on them at a million dollars a flight seems pretty ridiculous, to be honest.' The coming weeks and months are likely to keep Cartwright busy, as deportation flights have been ramping up. In the last couple of weeks, Cartwright said he has noticed flights have 'accelerated quite a bit,' and he said is anticipating May to be a record-breaking month for total flights. Cartwright said his work is important because it sends a message to those on the flights — and those their deportation left behind in America. 'The people on the planes deserve the dignity of someone giving a damn,' he said. 'All these people on these planes, they have mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles. They deserve the dignity of someone understanding that they are being sent away to somewhere that, in some cases, they haven't seen in years or somewhere that is dangerous or where they won't be able to support their family.' ***UPDATE: This story has been updated with a comment from the Department of Homeland Security. Arizona Mirror reporter Jerod MacDonald-Evoy can be reached at jerodmacevoy@ Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@ SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump Admin Signals It Will Return One Wrongfully Deported Man
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM's Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version. In what could be a major breakthrough, the Trump administration told a federal court Wednesday that it has taken affirmative steps to retrieve an unlawfully deported Guatemalan man and return him to the United States so that he can receive the due process he was initially denied. It was the first concession of its kind that the Trump administration has made in the handful of cases where courts have ordered it to facilitate the return of wrongfully deported foreign nationals and which have become the focal point of a constitutional clash between President Trump and the judiciary. The concession comes in the case of O.C.G., a gay man who had succeeded in U.S. immigration court at not being deported to his home country but whom the Trump administration them immediately deported to Mexico., which in turn sent him to Guatemala. In his immigration court hearing, the man claimed to have been previously kidnapped and raped in Mexico, but the immigration judge (probably correctly, under current law) said the case at hand was limited to Guatemala. O.C.G.'s situation emerged in a larger case in federal court in Massachusetts challenging third country deportations without notice and hearing. It's the same case where the Trump administration tried to get around a court order with last week's deportation flight to South Sudan. The government alerted the court of its efforts to return O.C.G. in a filing that said certain paperwork had already been completed and that the administration 'is currently working with ICE Air to bring O.C.G. back to the United States on an Air Charter Operations (ACO) flight return leg.' A few words of caution about what this means for O.C.G. and the other 'facilitate' cases: O.C.G. is not back yet. Throughout his business and political life President Trump has dragged his feet at every step of litigation, including later stages after concessions have been made or a settlement reached. While this is a significant step compared to the previous defiance, it's not a done deal yet. Unlike Kilmar Abrego Garcia and 'Cristian,' the other two major 'facilitate' cases, O.C.G. was not incarcerated after his deportation. He has remained in hiding in Guatemala, not in prison. That distinction is one that the administration may use to justify not similarly returning other wrongfully deported migrants. Unlike Cristian and the dozens of others incarcerated at CECOT in El Salvador, O.C.G. wasn't deported under the Alien Enemies Act, which the Trump administration has sought to use as an entirely separate legal basis for removals and will likely use to distinguish O.C.G.'s case. All of which is to say that while the administration's signal that it will abide by the court order to facilitate O.C.G.'s return is a potential breakthrough that undermines its legal position in other cases, I'd caution against leaping to the conclusion that it is the beginning of a wholesale walk-back of the administration's outrageous conduct in these key anti-immigration cases. In one of the most obtuse judicial opinions you'll ever encounter, U.S. District Judge Michael E. Farbiarz of New Jersey ruled that the Trump administration's attempt to deport Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist, was likely unconstitutional, but stopped short of ordering Khalil's release until both parties can file further briefs. Education Secretary Linda McMahon provided valuable evidence on national TV that the Trump administration is targeting universities for illegitimate political reasons: President Trump announced his plan to nominate his former criminal defense attorney, now serving as the No. 3 at the Justice Department to a coveted seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit (which covers PA, NJ, DE, and the USVI). Bove has been a leading figure in rapidly bringing the Justice Department firmly under Trump White House control, erasing its storied independence and eroding its professional reputation. Trump's social media post announcing Bove's nomination to the lifetime seat on the appeals court described the job in startling political terms: 'He will end the Weaponization of Justice, restore the Rule of Law, and do anything else that is necessary to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.' Following on remarks from U.S. pardon attorney Ed Martin, President Trump confirmed he is considering pardoning the violent extremists convicted in the 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), falsely claiming that they 'got railroaded.' President Trump pardoned former Rep. Michael Grimm, the Staten Island Republican who resigned from Congress in 2015 and did prison time for tax fraud. Grimm was paralyzed last year in a horseback riding accident. Trump has now pardoned a total of nine members of Congress convicted of corruption and/or tax crimes. Grimm wasn't the only corrupt politician among the more than two dozen people Trump pardoned yesterday, a list that included political allies of his. The kicker to Trump's pardonpalooza: Trump is exacting retribution against more than three dozen former death row inmates whose sentences President Biden commuted by sending them to the nation's only 'supermax' prison. A judge has cleared the way for those transfers, saying the inmates had not yet exhausted their administrative remedies with the Bureau of Prisons, a necessary predicate to filing their federal lawsuits. Nancy Marks, one-time campaign manager to ousted Rep. George Santos (R-NY), avoided jail time for her role in his campaign finance schemes. The ousted fabulist congressman was sentenced last month to seven years in prison. Her possible cooperation with investigators against Santos has never been confirmed. 'I'm going to leave that an enigma,' her lawyer said. CBS News parent Paramount has offered $15 million to settle Donald Trump's bogus lawsuit against it for how it edited an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 campaign. Trump is holding out for $25 million and an apology, but Paramount executive are leery of paying more than the going rate for these corrupt settlements of spurious Trump lawsuits because it might expose them to legal liability, the WSJ reports: During the Trump-suit negotiations, one sticking point for Paramount executives has been whether a settlement could expose directors and officers to liability in potential future shareholder litigation or criminal charges for bribing a public official, according to people familiar with the conversations. By settling within the range of what other companies have paid to end litigation with Trump, some Paramount executives hope to minimize such liability, some of the people said. Paramount is eager to settle for its own corrupt purpose: winning government approval for a planned merger. The Court of International Trade blocked major elements of President Trump's regimen of massive tariffs, ruling that he had exceeded his statutory authority and usurped Congress' role. HHS has undermined the county's capacity to fight future influenza pandemics by cancelling a $600 million contract with Moderna to develop flu vaccines. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blindsided CDC officials with his surprise announcement on social media that he was unilaterally changing the government's guidance on who should get COVID vaccines and when. A massive chunk of Switzerland's Birch Glacier – destabilized by climate change – came loose, unleashing a debris flow that almost completely wiped out an already-evacuated Alpine village. The BBC has video of the shock wave advancing across the valley floor.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
J.D. Vance's campaign plane carried anti-immigrant rhetoric. Now it carries shackled deportees.
JD Vance boards his plane as he departs Arizona following a tour of the U.S. southern border with Mexico, on Aug. 1, 2024, in Sierra Vista, Arizona. Vance was visiting the border on the final stop of his first visit to the Southwest as a vice presidential candidate. Photo by Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images After Donald Trump tapped him as his running mate, J.D. Vance crisscrossed the country and gave speech after speech in which he, like Trump, demonized immigrants and promised to mount a mass deportation effort if elected. The Boeing 737 that he used to travel around the nation is now being used to deport immigrants. Records show that it has made at least 16 flights to Central and South American countries to deport immigrants this year. An Arizona Mirror analysis of publicly available data and records obtained by the University of Washington through Freedom of Information Act requests confirms that the 22-year-old jet is part of the fleet of planes known as 'ICE Air' that swiftly shuttles immigrants out of the United States. ICE Air consists of multiple charter airlines and other private aviation companies around the country who are contracted to move immigrant detainees inside and out of the country. Even before the plane was emblazoned with the Trump campaign logo in July 2024, it had been used at least four times to transport immigrant detainees during an earlier stint on the ICE Air fleet. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Data analyzed by the Mirror and confirmed by University of Washington Center for Human Rights researcher Phil Neff show that the aircraft flew four ICE Air missions in April and May of 2018. Those four missions consisted of three removal flights to El Salvador and Guatemala, in which deportees were shipped off to those countries. The fourth was a transfer flight, in which detainees were moved from one ICE facility to another. During those four missions in 2018, the aircraft carried between 456 to 504 passengers, according to ICE passenger data. And records from 2020 detail 35 flights from known ICE hubs to Central and South American countries. For example, on March 6, 2020, the aircraft took off from the Alexandria Airport in Louisiana, where ICE has a staging facility operated by private contractor GEO Group. It then landed at the José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport in Guayaquil, Ecuador, before returning to Alexandria. Earlier this year, that same airport was where military planes deported migrants. Data on flights after 2018 is more difficult to confirm. ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security began redacting identifying information of the aircraft used in the deportation process, making it more difficult to see the movements of individual planes, though it is still possible in some cases. Civil rights groups have been fighting for records about the program, while the agency regularly slow-walks records releases. 'Our experience in general with FOIAs — not just with the Department of Homeland Security, but especially with the Department of Homeland Security — is you should expect to have to sue to get information and for us that process involves getting approval from the highest level of the university,' Neff told the Mirror. 'So, we have had to be very selective in the case in which we have had to do that.' Just five months after Trump and Vance won the election, the aircraft flew between multiple airports known for ICE Air activity before heading to an airport in Honduras known for deportation flights, then coming to rest at Mesa Gateway Airport. It is not clear if Trump or Vance were aware of the aircraft's history prior to it becoming part of their campaign. A spokesperson for the White House directed the Mirror to the Department of Homeland Security and Vance's office. Vance and DHS did not respond. The aircraft, N917XA, has a long and interesting history. It started its life in the fleet of the now defunct Air Berlin before transferring to Orenair, another ill-fated airline based in Russia, until it was acquired by Swift Air. Swift Air was a subcontractor for ICE and has previously conducted flights out of Mesa Gateway Airport, one of ICE's major airport hubs. Flight history shows the plane has made multiple flights to and from Mesa Gateway to other ICE airport hubs, as well as to Central and South American countries. A previous inspector general report listed the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway airport as the operational headquarters for ICE Air. Swift Air rebranded as iAero Airways in 2019, but went bankrupt in 2024. Eastern Air Express acquired much of iAero's assets, including N917XA, in April 2024. Three months later, it was unveiled as Vance's campaign jet. Eastern Air Express has also taken over the ICE Air contracts that iAero held. The company also has connections to the Trump world. From 1989 to 1992, Trump owned an airline company called 'Trump Shuttle,' which he purchased after meeting the Eastern Air Express CEO at a party. But the endeavor, like so many of Trump's businesses, was financially doomed and failed. ICE Air operations in Arizona are beginning to ramp up as well, with Avelo Airlines starting to make deportation flights out of Mesa Gateway this month, amid financial woes and market competition. Contracts to conduct deportation flights are lucrative for the companies involved. The Project on Government Oversight has reported that CSI Aviation, whose corporate director was a 'fake elector' in New Mexico for Trump, was awarded a no-bid contract to the tune of $128 million. Neff said he wasn't surprised to learn that the aircraft which had been used for deportations had been utilized by the Trump campaign, although he did say there was an 'irony to it.' During their research, Neff said they found that some of the contractors would often boast about how they could turn aircraft around from passenger style to luxury style on short notice, even finding aircraft that had previously been used for deportations later being used to shuttle professional sports teams or musicians around the country. Immigrant advocates have been critical of the flights and say they raise a number of human rights and civil rights issues. Neff said those concerns are only being exacerbated by the Trump administration's push to speed up deportations. 'I think it is really impossible to overstate or understand the true scope of human impacts of a deportation program on this scale,' Neff said. During their initial research, which covered flights between 2010 and 2020, Neff said they found a 'significant portion' of the passengers being deported still had ongoing cases that had not worked their way through the courts. The Trump administration has recently been defending its use of the Alien Enemies Act, the 1798 law that was last used during World War II to intern Japanese Americans, to do rapid deportations. Once on the planes, immigrants are shackled at their feet and hands for the duration of the flight. In testimony in a class action lawsuit against the United States, where passengers were shackled for 23 hours sitting on the tarmac, some soiled themselves as they were denied access to the bathroom. Abuse on ICE Air flights have been reported going back to 2016, when some passengers were left bloodied after being beaten and placed in body-bag style restraints. In some cases, deaths and miscarriages have been reported on ICE Air flights. And transparency about the flights is getting worse, Neff noted. While the first round of data obtained by researchers contained information such as flight destinations, flight costs and the tail numbers of aircraft, the government redacted that information from future releases. While public flight history data is available to researchers, those researchers are working overtime to help track these flights. 'It is 8 or 10 hours, 7 days a week. It is a significant amount of time,' immigration activist Tom Cartwright, who has been voluntarily tracking ICE flights since Trump's first term, told the Mirror. During that time, Cartwright has noticed that tracking the aircraft has gotten considerably more difficult, as federal agencies have sought to stymie watchdogs from monitoring the program by removing their aircraft from flight-tracking services. But Cartwright and others have still found other ways to keep a watchful eye on the program. 'The transparency has gotten worse over time and worse under the (second) Trump administration,' Cartwright said, adding that taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent. 'To send some of these flights with relatively few people on them at a million dollars a flight seems pretty ridiculous, to be honest.' The coming weeks and months are likely to keep Cartwright busy, as deportation flights have been ramping up. In the last couple of weeks, Cartwright said he has noticed flights have 'accelerated quite a bit,' and he said is anticipating May to be a record-breaking month for total flights. Cartwright said his work is important because it sends a message to those on the flights — and those their deportation left behind in America. 'The people on the planes deserve the dignity of someone giving a damn,' he said. 'All these people on these planes, they have mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles. They deserve the dignity of someone understanding that they are being sent away to somewhere that, in some cases, they haven't seen in years or somewhere that is dangerous or where they won't be able to support their family.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Trump administration says it is working to return Guatemalan man who was deported without due process
The Department of Homeland Security is working to place an immigrant who was improperly deported to Mexico onto a charter flight back to the United States, the Trump administration told a judge on Wednesday. The revelation is the first public sign that the Trump administration may comply with court orders to facilitate the return of at least one of the men who were found to have been deported without legally required due process. Still, the administration has resisted orders from two other judges to seek the return of two other immigrants whose deportations were ruled improper. The new development came in the case of a Guatemalan man who is identified in court papers only by the initials O.C.G. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy ruled that officials must take 'all immediate steps' to facilitate his return. O.C.G. has claimed that he was raped and otherwise targeted for being gay during a previous stay in Mexico. Murphy, a Biden appointee, found that he wasn't provided meaningful notice or an opportunity to raise those fears about torture or persecution when the Trump administration hurriedly deported him to Mexico in February. Federal law and a U.S.-ratified treaty bar deportations to countries where an immigrant will face torture. After the U.S. deported O.C.G., Mexico in turn deported him to his home country of Guatemala, where he has also faced persecution and threats of violence. His lawyers said he is hiding there at his sister's home. Immigration officials now say they are arranging a way for him to fly back to the U.S. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Enforcement office in Phoenix 'is currently working with ICE Air to bring O.C.G. back to the United States on an Air Charter Operations (ACO) flight return leg,' federal officials told Murphy in a court filing late Wednesday. The status update is a marked contrast from how the administration has thus far handled the cases of two other deportees whom the administration has been ordered to try to return: Kilmar Abrego Garcia and Daniel Lozano-Camargo. Both men were deported in March to El Salvador, where they remain in prison. The Supreme Court in April noted that Abrego Garcia's deportation was 'illegal' because it violated a 2019 immigration court order barring officials from deporting him to El Salvador. The justices affirmed a federal district judge's order for the administration to facilitate his return. A different federal judge found that Lozano-Camargo's deportation violated a court-approved settlement agreement that protected certain immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as minors. A federal appeals court upheld the judge's order to facilitate his return. But the Trump administration has taken no public steps to try to bring Abrego Garcia or Lozano-Camargo back to the U.S., even as Trump himself claimed that he could get Abrego Garcia back by making a single phone call. The administration also did not comply with another judge's order in March requiring officials to reroute two planes that were then flying a group of deportees out of the country. Murphy denied a request from the government on Monday to reconsider his orders to bring back O.C.G. The judge added that the administration had repeatedly violated a separate ruling he had issued when it put several immigrants on a flight to South Sudan last week, in an attempt to hurriedly deport the men.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Trump administration working to return migrant hastily deported to Mexico after resisting similar court orders in other cases
US immigration officials are 'working' on flying back a Guatemalan migrant who says he was wrongly deported to Mexico, according to new court filings, in what appears to mark the first time the Trump administration has made plans to bring back a migrant after a judge ordered the administration to facilitate their return. Phoenix-based immigration officials are 'currently working with ICE Air to bring O.C.G. back to the United States on an Air Charter Operations (ACO) flight return leg,' the Justice Department said in the Wednesday court filing, referring to the pseudonym the migrant is using in the case. US District Judge Brian Murphy, who sits in Boston, ordered O.C.G.'s return last week. The case that Murphy is overseeing concerns the deportation of migrants to 'third countries,' or nations that are not their home country. After entering the US and being deported a first time, the Guatemalan man reentered the US again in 2024, at which point he sought asylum, having suffered 'multiple violent attacks' in Guatemala, according to court documents. On his way to the US during the second trip, O.C.G. said, he was raped and held for ransom in Mexico –– a detail he made known to an immigration judge during proceedings. In 2025, a judge ruled he should not be sent back to his native country, the documents say. Two days after the judge ruled he should not be removed to Guatemala, the government deported him to Mexico, according to Murphy's order. O.C.G. had claimed in the case that he had not been given the opportunity before his deportation to communicate his fear of being sent to Mexico and that his pleas before his removal to speak to an attorney were rejected. The government had been arguing in the case that O.C.G. had communicated to officials before his removal that he had no fear about being deported to Mexico. But recently, the government had to back down from that claim, acknowledging that it could not identify an immigration official who could substantiate that version of events. Before Murphy's ruling, O.C.G. filed a declaration that said he was now in Guatemala, where he has been 'living in hiding, in constant panic and constant fear.' O.C.G.'s removal to Mexico and subsequently Guatemala likely 'lacked due process,' Murphy said in his ruling. During his immigration proceedings, O.C.G. said he feared being sent to Mexico, but the judge told him that since Mexico isn't his native country, he can't be sent there without additional steps in the process, the ruling said. 'Those necessary steps, and O.C.G.'s pleas for help, were ignored. As a result, O.C.G. was given up to Mexico, which then sent him back to Guatemala, where he remains in hiding today,' Murphy said. Murphy's ruling came days after an appeals court denied the Trump administration's request to put on hold an order requiring it to facilitate the return of a 20-year-old Venezuelan migrant wrongly deported to El Salvador earlier this year. During a hearing earlier this month, US District Judge Stephanie Gallagher said officials had done virtually nothing to comply with her directive that they 'facilitate' the migrant's return to the US from the mega-prison in El Salvador where he was sent so he can have his asylum application resolved. In a similar case, the Trump administration has been in a standoff with another federal judge in Maryland over her order that it facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was mistakenly deported in March. US District Judge Paula Xinis, who is overseeing the case, has faced repeated stonewalling from the Justice Department and members of the Trump administration, who have continued to thwart an 'expedited fact-finding' search for answers on what officials are doing to facilitate his return from El Salvador. CNN's Karina Tsui contributed to this report.
