Judge rules Trump administration must work to return asylum seeker from Guatemala who was wrongfully deported

By Karina Tsui, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration has been ordered to facilitate the return of a Guatemalan man who was wrongly deported to Mexico in February, after he told authorities about his fears of violence and torture across the border.

This case marks at least the third time the administration has been ordered to return a migrant it wrongfully deported.

The Guatemalan man, identified as “O.C.G,” sought asylum in the United States in 2024, after “suffering multiple violent attacks” in Guatemala, according to court documents.

On his way to the US, O.C.G. said, he was raped and held for ransom in Mexico –– a detail he made known to an immigration judge before the judge ruled he should not be sent back to his native country, the documents read.

Two days after he received status, however, the man was forced by immigration authorities onto a bus to Mexico, without having a chance to explain the nuances of his case or contact his lawyer. Mexican authorities then deported him to Guatemala where he says he lives “in constant fear of his attackers,” according to the documents.

O.C.G.’s removal to Mexico and subsequently Guatemala likely “lacked due process,” US District Judge Brian Murphy said in his ruling released Friday night. 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.

“No one has ever suggested that O.C.G poses any sort of security threat,” Murphy noted. “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 county where he was allegedly just raped and kidnapped.”

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.

“Cristian,” as he was identified in court documents, was among a group of migrants who were deported in mid-March under the Alien Enemies Act, a sweeping 18th Century wartime authority Trump invoked to speed up removals of individuals it claims are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

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” Cristian’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.

Abrego Garcia was also sent to the El Salvador prison, known as CECOT, in violation of a 2019 court order that said he could not be deported to that country.

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.

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CNN’s Devan Cole and Angélica Franganillo Díaz contributed to this report.