The Trump administration is working to return an illegal migrant to the U.S. so he can have proper due process proceedings, according to a court filing.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston on Friday ordered the administration to facilitate the return of the gay Guatemalan man after officials acknowledged an error in his case. The man said he had been deported to Mexico despite fearing he would be persecuted there.
The judge issued the order days after the Justice Department notified him that its claim the man had expressly stated he was not afraid of being sent to Mexico was based on erroneous information.
The man's attorneys argued their client has no criminal history and sought asylum in the U.S. after multiple violent attacks against him in his native country of Guatemala, CBS News reported.
In a court filing Wednesday, DOJ said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) was working to bring the individual, identified as "O.C.G.," back to the U.S.
The filing said ICE and ERO contacted O.C.G.'s attorneys last weekend, and a "Significant Public Benefit Parole packet" had been forwarded to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) for approval.
ERO's Phoenix office was working with ICE Air to return O.C.G. to the U.S. on "an Air Charter Operations (ACO) flight return leg," the filing said.
O.C.G. first entered the U.S. illegally in March 2024 and was deported. After returning to the U.S. last year, he presented himself to Border Patrol for asylum proceedings, CBS News reported.
In February, an immigration judge found 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.
However, O.C.G. said he was placed on a bus two days after the judge's decision and was removed without due process to Mexico.
Mexican authorities then removed O.C.G. 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."
Reuters contributed to this story.
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