Trump Migrant Crackdown Spurs New Wrongful Deportation Claims

President Donald Trump’s administration continues to face claims that US officials are wrongfully deporting migrants in violation of court orders and other legal protections amid his ramped up immigration enforcement.

Immigrant advocates sued this week on behalf of a transgender woman sent to Mexico despite an immigration judge’s order blocking the move due to her risk of being tortured or killed. A government lawyer acknowledged that the woman was “inadvertently” deported, according to emails filed in court. Her attorneys say the administration then failed to ensure she could safely return to the US.

Such cases aren’t new. Government officials have been in court for months fighting Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a migrant from El Salvador who sued to challenge his mistaken deportation to his home country. That case is poised to come to a head later this week, when a judge will hear arguments on the administration’s latest plan to send him to Liberia.

In the meantime, the number of suits is growing. Other recent cases alleged that a 16-year-old boy was deported unlawfullyto Guatemala and that a man claiming US citizenship was sent to Laos after a judge temporarily barredthe removal.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia joined by his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura and supporters arrives for a check-in at the ICE field office in Baltimore on Aug. 25.

Photographer: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg

Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed challenging Trump’s hard-line immigration policies. While only a small portion involve wrongful deportation claims, those cases have been thorny for the government, especially when the Justice Department has admitted that authorities made mistakes.

Read More: Why Is Trump Deporting Migrants to ‘Third Countries’?

The transgender woman who was sent to Mexico, Britania Uriostegui Rios, arrived at a US point of entry on Tuesday but wasn’t allowed to enter despite assurances from the government they would permit it, according to the ACLU of Louisiana, one of the groups representing her.

Nora Ahmed, legal director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said in an interview that if she’s allowed to reenter, her lawyers want her released under supervision until officials identify another country to deport her to because the US government “can’t be trusted.”

Ahmed said that because detainees aren’t guaranteed government-funded legal counsel in US immigration court — like they would be in a criminal case — mistakes are more likely to happen and migrants often have little recourse. Uriostegui Rios was “lucky” to have contact information for a lawyer working on her immigration case when she was sent to Mexico, Ahmed said.

Spokespeople with the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department didn’t respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

The case of Abrego Garcia, who was living in Maryland when he was first detained, was an early legal test of how the Trump administration would handle wrongful deportations. The government acknowledged it erred by sending Abrego Garcia to a notorious El Salvador prison but fought court orders directing officials to take steps to bring him back. The administration eventually returned him to the US to face charges of human smuggling, which he has denied.

A Maryland federal judge is scheduled to hear arguments on Thursday about whether the administration can deport Abrego Garcia to Liberia over his objection. A different judge presiding over his criminal case in Tennessee ruled that he could go free pending a trial, but he’s remained in custody in connection with his immigration status.

During a pre-hearing conference on Monday, US District Judge Paula Xinisin Greenbelt, Maryland, said she was leaning against at least some of the government’s arguments for why Abrego Garcia’s challenge to his immigration-related detention should fail, but that she would keep an open mind.

‘Inadvertent Removal’

According to Uriostegui Rios’ lawsuit in a Louisiana federal court, the US deported her to Mexico on Nov. 11 even though an immigration judge held in March that she couldn’t be sent there for now under the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

The following day, a Justice Department lawyer acknowledged in an email that Uriostegui Rios was “inadvertently” removed to Mexico and that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement “stands ready to remedy the inadvertent removal by allowing your client to voluntarily reenter the United States if your client wishes to do so,” according to a copy of the correspondence included with the complaint.

Uriostegui Rios’ lawyers argued the US government had an obligation to find their client and bring her back. The Justice Department attorney replied that there were “practical barriers to that position.” In the days that followed, the woman’s lawyers said she was moving slowly toward the US border to avoid detection because she was “constantly afraid of being discovered, tortured, or killed because of her transgender identity.” Uriostegui Rios also faced challenges because she arrived in Mexico with no money and serious mental health conditions, her lawyers wrote in the emails.

In another case in Louisiana, the ACLU and National Immigration Project are seeking the return of the man deported to Laos, arguing he shouldn’t have been removed given his claim of citizenship. The judge is weighing whether the government violated her directive to keep him in the country for now.

The Homeland Security department disputes the allegation, posting on social media that the judge’s restraining order “was not served to ICE until AFTER the criminal illegal alien was removed.”

The administration is facing another lawsuit filed this month in Washington on behalf of the teenager sent to Guatemala. His lawyers say he was granted “Special Immigrant Juvenile Status” by the US government that shielded him against deportation. They alleged that officials also failed to properly follow the removal process before putting him on a plane.

The Justice Department hasn’t responded to the lawsuit in court yet.

The case is Uriostegui Rios v. Trump, 25-cv-1798, US District Court, Western District of Louisiana (Alexandria).

To contact the reporter on this story:
Zoe Tillman in Washington at ztillman2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net

Steve Stroth, Elizabeth Wasserman

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