Latest news with #wrongfuldeportation
The Independent
29-05-2025
- General
- The Independent
Trump administration agrees to return ‘wrongfully' deported immigrant for first time after battling court orders
For what appears to be the first time, Donald Trump 's administration will 'facilitate' the return of a 'wrongfully' deported immigrant following a court order. A gay Guatemalan man referred to as 'O.C.G' in court documents says he survived sexual violence and kidnapping in Mexico on his way to the southern border last year. But federal immigration authorities failed to screen him for a credible fear assessment before deporting him back to the same country where he was raped and held for ransom. Last week, District Judge Brian Murphy ordered the administration to 'facilitate' his return — echoing court orders in two other high-profile immigration cases involving 'wrongfully' deported immigrants. '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,' Murphy wrote. On Wednesday, lawyers for the Department of Justice said Homeland Security officials are preparing to return him to the United States — and potentially release him from custody for humanitarian reasons. A flight crew in Phoenix is working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement 's air division to put him on a charter flight, according to court filings. Murphy's ruling marks at least the third time that the Trump administration has been ordered to return a wrongly deported immigrant. Last month, a Trump-appointed federal judge found that the government's removal of a 20-year-old Venezuelan man named in court documents as 'Cristian' violated a court settlement intended to protect young immigrants who have pending asylum claims. The Supreme Court has also unanimously agreed that the Trump administration 'illegally' deported Salvadoran immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father and husband living in Maryland. Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador as a teenager in 2011. He has been imprisoned in his home country since March 15. More than a month after the highest court's decision, the Trump administration has yet to facilitate his return, and is engaged in a tense legal battle to avoid answering what steps, if any, it is taking to bring him back, and arguing that the administration does not need to answer to questions from a federal judge about its arrangement with El Salvador. The administration has filed a motion to try to dismiss that case altogether. O.C.G.'s case is part of a wider class-action lawsuit targeting the administration's so-called third-country removals, in which immigrants are deported to somewhere other than their home country. Murphy has blocked removing those immigrants without adequate notice — which he alleges the administration defied when authorities sent a group of immigrants to South Sudan. Murphy, who was appointed by Joe Biden, has faced a barrage of attacks from the White House, which labeled him a 'far-left activist' who is trying to 'protect the violent criminal illegal immigrants.' Trump called him 'absolutely out of control' and accused him of 'hurting our country.' This week, the judge accused government attorneys of 'manufacturing chaos' surrounding the case. Immigration officials initially claimed that O.C.G. had agreed to be sent to Mexico, but the administration later admitted in court documents that their claim was based on erroneous information. An immigration official wrote in a sworn statement that 'ICE was unable to identify an officer or officers' who had even asked the man about his credible fear. 'How was this mistake made?' Murphy asked government lawyers during a hearing last week. 'This is a really big deal,' he said. 'It is a big deal to lie to a court under oath. It is an extraordinarily big deal to do so when there are matters of national importance at stake. I take this extremely seriously.' He suggested he could call Homeland Security officials into court to testify under oath. 'While mistakes obviously happen, the events leading up to this decision are troubling,' Murphy wrote in his order on May 23. 'The Court was given false information, upon which it relied twice, to the detriment of a party at risk of serious and irreparable harm.' Lawyers for the Guatemalan man are likely to 'succeed in showing that his removal lacked any semblance of due process,' according to Murphy.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Banal horror': Judge orders Trump administration to return Guatemalan rape survivor ‘wrongfully' deported to Mexico
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to return a Guatemalan man who was 'wrongfully' deported to Mexico. The man, referred to as 'O.C.G' in court documents, says he fled Guatemala in April 2024. While passing through Mexico, he says he was raped, targeted for being gay and held prisoner until his sister paid a ransom. Now, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy says he must be returned to the U.S. '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,' Murphy wrote in a Friday evening ruling. The man has no known criminal history, and no one has 'ever suggested that O.C.G. poses any sort of security threat,' Murphy wrote. Murphy also says he received false information from government attorneys. At first, the Trump administration told Murphy that the man was asked if he had any fears about going to Mexico. But soon afterward, government attorneys admitted they couldn't find any official who remembered asking the question. 'Finally, it must be said that, while mistakes obviously happen, the events leading up to this decision are troubling,' Murphy wrote. 'The Court was given false information, upon which it relied, twice, to the detriment of a party at risk of serious and irreparable harm.' Murphy added that the man's attorneys are likely to succeed in arguing he wasn't given proper due process, which is required under law. '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,' Murphy wrote. This ruling comes after the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the Trump administration 'illegally' deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father and husband from Maryland. Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador as a teenager in 2011. Now, he's in a Salvadoran prison. Now, over a month after the highest court's decision, the Trump administration has yet to facilitate his return. The administration has also begun targeting college students involved in pro-Palestinian activism. Georgetown postdoctoral scholar Badar Khan Suri sued the Trump administration after he was arrested on March 17. Officials said they were revoking his visa because of his social media activity and accused him of supporting Hamas, the Associated Press reports. Columbia University scholar Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident with no criminal record, was also detained around the same time over his participation in pro-Palestinian protests. Khalil's wife gave birth a month after his arrest. He held his newborn son for the first time from ICE detention this week. The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.
The Independent
24-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
‘Banal horror': Judge orders Trump administration to return Guatemalan rape survivor ‘wrongfully' deported to Mexico
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to return a Guatemalan man who was 'wrongfully' deported to Mexico. The man, referred to as 'O.C.G' in court documents, says he fled Guatemala in April 2024. While passing through Mexico, he says he was raped, targeted for being gay and held prisoner until his sister paid a ransom. Now, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy says he must be returned to the U.S. '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,' Murphy wrote in a Friday evening ruling. The man has no known criminal history, and no one has 'ever suggested that O.C.G. poses any sort of security threat,' Murphy wrote. Murphy also says he received false information from government attorneys. At first, the Trump administration told Murphy that the man was asked if he had any fears about going to Mexico. But soon afterward, government attorneys admitted they couldn't find any official who remembered asking the question. 'Finally, it must be said that, while mistakes obviously happen, the events leading up to this decision are troubling,' Murphy wrote. 'The Court was given false information, upon which it relied, twice, to the detriment of a party at risk of serious and irreparable harm.' Murphy added that the man's attorneys are likely to succeed in arguing he wasn't given proper due process, which is required under law. '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,' Murphy wrote. This ruling comes after the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the Trump administration 'illegally' deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father and husband from Maryland. Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador as a teenager in 2011. Now, he's in a Salvadoran prison. Now, over a month after the highest court's decision, the Trump administration has yet to facilitate his return. The administration has also begun targeting college students involved in pro-Palestinian activism. Officials said they were revoking his visa because of his social media activity and accused him of supporting Hamas, the Associated Press reports. Columbia University scholar Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident with no criminal record, was also detained around the same time over his participation in pro-Palestinian protests. The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Judges Demand Answers from ‘Stonewalling' Trump Admin Over Wrongful Deportation
Judges in multiple jurisdictions are pressing the Trump administration for answers regarding the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. On Friday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C. ordered government lawyers to provide more information about their attempts to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S, The Washington Post reported. Abrego Garcia's March deportation to El Salvador was an 'administrative error,' a Justice Department lawyer admitted in court months ago. Yet the Maryland dad is still in the Central American country, even after a Supreme Court ruling against the government. The Trump administration has one week to hand over all 'documents memorializing, documenting, or describing the arrangements between the United States and El Salvador,' Boasberg said in his order. It was Boasberg's order that the administration flouted earlier this year when it sent planes carrying Salvadorans and Venezuelans to El Salvador. Also on Friday, a federal judge in Maryland handling a lawsuit from Abrego Garcia's family doubted whether the Trump administration was really trying to get him back. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said that the government has only provided 'a bunch of ''I don't knows'" in response to her orders requiring daily updates and other things. 'I don't want to tell you how long it took my wonderful law clerks to count up the 'I don't knows,'' Xinis said, telling government lawyers that she may issue a written warning. The government contends that any pertinent information they have constitutes 'state secrets' and would endanger national security. That claim doesn't appear to be holding up, especially since government officials have said so much about the case publicly. Xinis agreed with the plaintiff's lawyers, who said in a recent filing that the 'Government's assertion of state secrets is consistent with an effort to avoid judicial scrutiny of its actions.' They had also described how, 'Over and over, the Government has stonewalled Plaintiffs by asserting unsupported privileges—primarily state secrets and deliberative process—to withhold written discovery and to instruct witnesses not to answer even basic questions." Xinis seemed shocked by what one government lawyer had to say on Friday. 'Just so I understand the government's position—that the warrantless, baseless seizure of a person off the streets of our state, country is not government misconduct?' she said. 'Okay. All right.'
