AP Photo/Alex Brandon
The Trump administration’s race to deport as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, has led to another major error. This time, the administration is admitting it—and it could have a major effect on deportation lawsuits.
One of the challenges to the administration’s mass deportation scheme is a class-action lawsuit, filed by some of the deported immigrants. At the center of the case is a Guatemalan man, identified only as O.C.G., who despite trying to claim asylum, was sent to Mexico. Attorneys representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement had previously claimed that the man told ICE officials that he had no problem being sent to Mexico.
Now, according to a report in Politico, they are admitting they have no record of an ICE agent ever being told this by the man. In court filings, ICE blames a “software tool” that allows officials to insert comments into an asylum seeker’s file. They say that an entry in the system noted that the man didn’t mind returning to Mexico. But ICE officials haven’t been able to identify any specific officer who asked the man about returning to Mexico, which means the entry was made without basis.
The reason this matters so much is that O.C.G.’s case is part of a lawsuit to block Trump’s “third country” policy. It says that if an asylum seeker tells investigators they are afraid to go back to their home country—or if an immigrant’s home country won’t accept them back—they can still be forced to leave the United States, as long as they are sent to a third country.
This rule has already been used by the Trump administration to send immigrants to El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Panama. The administration also announced plans to send some Asian immigrants to Libya, and is in discussion with Rwanda as another possible site. Attorneys representing O.C.G. and other asylum seekers say they are not being given an opportunity to make their cases that the third country might be as dangerous as their home country.
In the case of O.C.G., his attorneys have said that he was targeted in Mexico for being a gay man. The man said that in April 2024 he was traveling through Mexico on the way to the U.S. to try and claim asylum, when he was kidnapped, raped, and held for ransom by a group of men.
Despite that dangerous history, O.C.G. says that he was deported to Mexico anyway, and O.C.G.’s attorneys have asked the federal judge overseeing the lawsuit to have him returned to the U.S. The judge did pause the third country deportation program, but based on ICE’s original assertion that O.C.G. had no problem returning to Mexico, the judge declined to order the man’s return.
The administration has appealed the order to stop “third country” deportations up to a federal appeals court. On Friday, that court did agree with the lower court’s decision to pause the deportations, at least temporarily. That decision freezes anymore deportations to El Salvador or Libya for the time being, but does not address the fate of O.C.G., or other immigrants who have already been improperly deported to a third country.
