US judge orders Trump administration to facilitate return of Guatemalan deportee

BOSTON (Reuters) -A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to facilitate the return of a Guatemalan man who said he was deported to Mexico despite fearing he would be persecuted there, after officials acknowledged making a mistake in his case.

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston issued the order days after the Justice Department notified him that its claim that the man had expressly stated he was not afraid of being sent to Mexico was based on erroneous information.

The ruling marks the latest instance of a judge ordering President Donald Trump's administration to facilitate the return of a migrant swept up in the Republican's efforts to carry out mass deportations as part of his hard-line immigration agenda following a mistake in an individual's case.

Such an error occurred with Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported to El Salvador in March despite an order protecting him from removal. He remains there, despite a judge ordering the administration to facilitate his return.

Friday's order concerns a man identified in court papers as "O.C.G.", a lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit before Murphy brought by a group of migrants with final orders of deportations challenging the prospect of being rapidly deported to countries other than their own.

Murphy, an appointee of Trump's Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, has issued a series of rulings in the case blocking the Department of Homeland Security from doing so without first ensuring those people have a meaningful opportunity for any concerns they have about their safety to be heard.

According to his lawyers, O.C.G. is a gay man who fled Guatemala in 2024 after facing death threats based on his sexuality. He entered the United States through Mexico in May 2024.

An immigration judge in February granted him protection from being deported to Guatemala after an asylum officer found he had a reasonable fear of persecution there. Yet two days later, he was placed on a bus and sent to Mexico, a country where he was previously held for ransom and raped, Murphy wrote on Friday.



(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Tom Hogue and William Mallard)