FOLLOWING ORDERS

Trump Administration Bows to Judge and Brings Deportee Back to U.S.

The gay Guatemalan man was deported against a judge’s orders despite his fears of persecution.

The Trump administration acquiesced to a judge’s order that it return a a wrongfully deported Guatemalan man. The man, identified in court documents as O.C.G., has been transported to a detention facility in Arizona, Politico reported. He was deported in February despite a judge blocking his deportation order because of O.C.G.’s fears of persecution for being gay. The Trump administration shipped O.C.G to Mexico, where he said he had previously been held hostage and raped by a group of men. Rather than seek asylum in Mexico, a fearful O.C.G. fled to Guatemala, where he has lived in hiding ever since. Last month, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to facilitate O.C.G.’s return to the U.S. so that he can make his case before an immigration judge. The administration has now followed the order—which it has failed to do in other similar cases, including that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Unlike Abrego Garcia, though, O.C.G. was not being held by another country’s government. Despite following the order, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Politico that “America’s asylum system was never intended to be used as a de facto amnesty program or a catch-all, get-out-of-deportation-free card.”