The Trump administration said it is working to secure the return of a Guatemalan man wrongly deported to Mexico — a shift after refusing to do so for others removed in error.
In a late Wednesday court filing, Justice Department officials said they were securing a flight for a man listed in court documents only as O.C.G.
Lawyers for the man contested his removal as part of a broader case before Massachusetts-based U.S. District Court Judge Brian Murphy. He is one of a number of plaintiffs who have sued over plans to remove them from the country.
O.C.G.’s attorneys have said their client is gay and was already protected from being returned to his native Guatemala. But they argued the Trump administration failed to account for his fear of being deported to Mexico, where he was previously raped and extorted.
The government filing indicates Trump officials have arranged to give the man “Significant Public Benefit Parole,” a form of humanitarian parole that would allow him to enter the country.
They also said they plan to arrange a flight for him on the return leg of a deportation flight.
The response stands in stark contrast to the Trump administration’s stance to two other wrongly deported men that have been ordered returned to the U.S.
The Trump administration has been ordered by the Supreme Court to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who an immigration judge protected from removal to his native El Salvador but who was nonetheless sent to a notorious megaprison in the country.
They have similarly failed to return a man known only as Cristian in court documents, a Venezuelan man likewise sent to the Salvadoran prison despite being protected from deportation under a class action suit.