
A Guatemalan man who said he was deported to Mexico despite fearing he would be persecuted there was flown back to the US on Wednesday after a judge ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return, his lawyer said.
Brian Murphy, a US district judge in Boston, Massachusetts, had ordered the man’s return after the US Department of Justice 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.
In a court order last month, Murphy found that the deportation of the man, identified in legal filings only as OCG, likely “lacked any semblance of due process”.
A lawyer for OCG, Trina Realmuto, told the Guardian on Wednesday evening shortly after the man landed in Los Angeles: “We can confirm that OCG landed in the US a few hours ago. He made contact with the legal team while waiting in line to go through immigration. We expect that he will be detained, but we don’t know where yet. If DHS again seeks to deport him to a third country, the judge’s order requires that he be given due process, including notice and the opportunity to present a fear-based claim.”