Deported Guatemalan man back in U.S. after judge orders Trump administration to return him

A Guatemalan man who was deported by the Trump administration and then was ordered to be returned by a judge because of due process concerns is back in the United States, his attorney said Wednesday.

The man, identified in court documents only as O.C.G., landed in the U.S. “a few hours ago” and contacted his legal team upon arrival, Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said Wednesday evening.

O.C.G. was expected to be taken into federal custody, Realmuto said.

The Trump administration deported O.C.G. to Mexico, where he had previously been held for ransom and raped as he traveled north to the U.S., in February, according to court documents.

O.C.G. was put on a bus and sent to Mexico despite a federal judge granting O.C.G. a withholding of removal just two days earlier, court documents show.

A withholding of removal is an order that prevents the United States from deporting someone to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened, based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group

“The Court has already found it likely that O.C.G.’s removal lacked due process,” U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy wrote in May, when he ordered the Trump administration to return him.

Murphy, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, also wrote in that order that the government didn’t put forth any evidence that due process was followed.

“The likelihood that O.C.G. is correct in asserting that his due-process rights were violated, in this Court’s view, has long hovered near certainty,” Murphy wrote.

O.C.G. is not the only person who has been deported from the United States only to have federal judges then order that the Trump administration return them.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported in March to a notorious prison in El Salvador, and the Trump administration has not yet facilitated his return to the U.S. as ordered by a federal judge. Politico reported in May that another man, Venezuelan national Daniel Lozano-Camargo, was deported to the same prison, and a judge has ordered the U.S. to return him as well.

O.C.G. fled Guatemala, where he said he endured persecution and torture, and came to the U.S. to claim asylum in March 2024, but was denied and deported, according to court records.

He then tried again and, while in Mexico traveling north to the U.S., he was held for ransom, raped and targeted for being gay, he said in a court declaration.

In May 2024, a U.S. asylum officer determined O.C.G. “had a reasonable fear” to return to Guatemala and was taken into immigration custody to see his case through.

In February, an immigration judge determined that O.C.G. would most likely be persecuted if deported to his native Guatemala, and granted him a withholding of removal, court records show. Instead, he was placed on a bus to Mexico a few days later, without notice.

Mexico then sent him to Guatemala, where he went into hiding, according to court records, before he was returned to the U.S. on Wednesday.