Guatemalan man deported to Mexico returns to US after court orders Trump
administration to do so
[June 05, 2025]
By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER
A Guatemalan man deported to Mexico, whom President Donald Trump's
administration was working to bring back after a court order, landed in
the United States on Wednesday, his attorneys confirmed.
The man, identified in court documents by initials O.C.G., landed in
California via a commercial flight and made contact with his legal team
while waiting in line to go through U.S. Customs and Border Protection,
said Trina Realmuto of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance.
He was later taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement and was being transported to a detention facility in
Arizona, she said in an email to The Associated Press.
The Trump administration said in court filings last month that it was
working to bring him back after he was deported to Mexico, despite his
fears of being harmed there, days after a federal judge ordered the
administration to facilitate his return.
The U.S. Department of Justice didn't immediately respond to a request
for comments and details from the AP.
The man, who is gay, was protected from being returned to his home
country under a U.S. immigration judge’s 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 “lacked any semblance of due
process.”
Mexico later returned him to Guatemala, where he was in hiding,
according to court documents.
In a court filing before his return, government lawyers said that a
so-called significant public benefit parole packet had been approved.
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.
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A military aircraft waits for migrants to board from a bus at Fort
Bliss in El Paso, Tx., Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, before deporting
them to Guatemala. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez, File)
An earlier court proceeding had determined that the man 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.
“As far as we know, it is the first time since January 20 that
(Department of Homeland Security) has facilitated return following a
district court order,” Realmuto said.
The case is among a string of findings by federal courts against
recent Trump administration deportations. Those have included other
deportations to third countries and the erroneous deportation of
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadoran man who had lived in Maryland
for roughly 14 years.
The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to
facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. from a notorious
Salvadoran prison, rejecting the White House’s claim that it
couldn’t 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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