The Trump administration said in court filings Wednesday that it was working to bring back a Guatemalan man who was deported to Mexico in spite of his fears of being harmed there, days after a federal judge to facilitate his return.
The man, who is gay, was protected from being returned to his home country under a U.S. immigration judge鈥檚 order at the time. But the U.S. put him on a bus and sent him to Mexico instead, a removal that U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy found likely 鈥渓acked any semblance of due process.鈥�
Mexico has since returned him to Guatemala, where he is in hiding, according to court documents.
In a court filing Wednesday, government lawyers said that a so-called significant public benefit parole packet had been approved and was awaiting additional approval from Homeland Security Investigations. The designation allows people who aren't eligible to enter the U.S. to do so temporarily, often for reasons related to law enforcement or legal proceedings.
Officials in the Phoenix field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, spoke with the man's lawyers over the weekend and are working to bring him back to the U.S. on a plane chartered by ICE, the court filing said.
An earlier court proceeding had determined that the man, identified by the initials O.C.G., risked persecution or torture if returned to Guatemala. But he also feared returning to Mexico, where he says he was raped and extorted while seeking asylum in the U.S., according to court documents.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, who called Murphy a 鈥渇ederal activist judge,鈥� said O.C.G. was in the country illegally, was 鈥済ranted withholding of removal to Guatemala鈥� and was instead sent to Mexico, which she said was 鈥渁 safe third option for him, pending his asylum claim.鈥�
Murphy鈥檚 order last Friday adds to a by federal courts against recent Trump administration deportations. Those have included other and the erroneous deportation of , an El Salvadoran who had lived in Maryland for roughly 14 years, working and raising a family.
The U.S. Supreme Court to facilitate Abrego Garcia鈥檚 return to the U.S. from a notorious Salvadoran prison, rejecting the White House鈥檚 claim that it couldn鈥檛 retrieve him after mistakenly deporting him. Both the White House and the El Salvadoran president have said they are powerless to return him.
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Claire Rush, The Associated Press
