Read Time: 1 min

A Guatemalan asylum‑seeker known in court filings as O.C.G. is back in the United States after a federal judge ruled that his removal first to Mexico and then to Guatemala violated due‑process protections.

A long odyssey
The migrant re‑entered the U.S. in 2024 seeking refuge after multiple violent attacks in Guatemala. En route, he said he was kidnapped and raped in Mexico—fears he voiced to an immigration judge. In 2025 a judge barred his return to Guatemala, yet two days later officials put him on a plane to Mexico, and later moved him to Guatemala.

Judge steps in
U.S. District Judge BrianMurphy ordered the government to bring him back, writing that the deportation likely "lacked due process." After weeks of delay, officials flew him stateside, where he is now in ICE custody while his asylum claim is heard.

Part of a wider pattern
The case joins a series of legal showdowns in which courts have told the administration to retrieve migrants wrongly expelled to third countries. Judges in Maryland and elsewhere have chastised officials for ignoring similar orders.