This May Be the Worst Wrongful Deportation Yet

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

It Just Keeps Happening

I’m keenly aware that at a certain point the numerous wrongful deportations by the Trump administration begin to blur together into an indistinguishable mass of human suffering, lawlessness, and indifference.

Unable to chronicle each one, I keep raising the bar for what’s worthy to bring to your attention. Regrettably, the Trump administration keeps finding new and unlawful ways to clear that bar.

A new case that emerged Friday out of Baltimore sets several new standards for egregiousness. It involves a Mexican national illegally in the United States whose testimony for the Justice Department against the drug cartels prompted an immigration judge in 2024 to bar his deportation to Mexico “after finding that he was more likely than not to be tortured by the government or by individuals acting with the acquiescence of the government if he were returned to Mexico.”

The details of the unusual case emerged entirely in an opinion issued by U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher of Maryland accompanied by an order that the Trump administration try to bring him back. The Trump administration deported him to Mexico any way — multiple times.

Most of the case file remains sealed, so it’s difficult to get full visibility into the case. That’s by Gallagher’s design because of her concerns that the Mexican man’s life is in danger. Gallagher took the rare step of sealing entirely an earlier iteration of the case because “the sensitive and urgent nature of this case requires a higher degree of confidentiality and security than it was originally filed under.” She had the case refiled as a John Doe case with additional protections.

What follows is drawn from Judge Gallagher’s opinion.

Released by ICE in 2024, the man lived in Maryland and complied with ICE requirements until he was re-detained in January during a routine ICE check-in. He was shipped to an ICE detention center in Louisiana, and then without notice he was deported to Guatemala last month.

This is where things go from bad to surreal, even though the man had a pending habeas corpus case in Louisiana.

Guatemala, refusing to take non-Guatemalans, turned him over to the Mexican consulate. After learning about his protections from deportation to Mexico, a Mexican consular official properly declined to accept him and he was returned to the United States the same day.

After bouncing him around various of its facilities, ICE deported him again a few days later, this time directly to Mexico in violation of the immigration judge’s order. To its credit, Mexico for a second time properly refused to take him, and he was returned to the U.S.

Again he was bounced around various ICE facilities before he was allegedly given notice (only in English and he only speaks Spanish) of a highly unusual move that requires intervention at the highest levels of government: The Trump administration had terminated the immigration judge’s order barring his removal to Mexico. More on that in a moment.

On Aug. 1, the Trump administration deported him for a third time — again to Mexico. “He has been in hiding since that date,” Judge Gallagher wrote in her order, “fearing that the cartels that he provided information against will find him and torture or kill him before he can return to the United States.”

This is not Gallagher’s first rodeo. Last year, she oversaw a case where a 20-year-old Venezuelan man referred to in the case filings only as “Cristian” was unlawfully deported to El Salvador’s CECOT prison under the Alien Enemies Act in violation of an existing court-approved settlement agreement. For months, the Trump administration stonewalled Gallagher’s order to facilitate the man’s return to the United States, then abruptly repatriated him to Venezuela — the very country from which he was seeking asylum in the United States. At that point, his lawyers lost contact with him.

While Gallagher declined to hold the Trump administration in contempt of court for its conduct, she thrashed it for its role in putting Cristian’s life at risk:

It is possible, at this point, that Cristian has decided to forego a return to the United States and has voluntarily absented himself from contact with his counsel. It is equally possible that Cristian has been the victim of the anticipated violence that caused him to seek asylum in the United States in the first instance.

Gallagher has closely patterned her rulings in wrongful deportation cases on those of her Maryland colleague U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who has overseen the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the poster child of wrongful deportations. In the beginning, Abrego Garcia was perhaps an incidental casualty of the administration’s mass deportation operation but he became a target when he fought back. It’s not clear why this John Doe was targeted, especially given his cooperation in testifying against the Mexican drug cartels.

The answer to why — to the extent it’s ever answerable — seems like it may be found in the decision to terminate the immigration judge’s order barring his removal under the Convention on Torture. When I say that that termination only happens at the highest level of the government, I mean Cabinet level:

“The Notice stated that the Department of State had received diplomatic assurances from the Mexican Government that Doe would not be tortured if returned to Mexico, and that Acting ICE Director David Venturella and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had consulted and determined that these assurances were reliable,” Judge Gallagher wrote.

In an eye-raising footnote in her opinion, Judge Gallagher signaled that she, too, was perplexed by this extraordinary intervention by the secretary of state and the acting ICE director:

It was agreed upon by the parties at a hearing that this form of termination, which requires the participation of a Cabinet member and another high-ranking U.S. government official, is extremely rare. No information was provided to explain why these top-level officials personally involved themselves in this case or why they terminated Doe’s CAT Deferral within a week of his removal to Mexico on July 15 or 16, allegedly in violation of the CAT.

The upshot of all of this for now is that Judge Gallagher issued a temporary restraining order requiring the Trump administration to take “active steps” within 14 days to “facilitate” the John Doe’s return to the United States. She also ordered daily status reports from the administration on the “specific efforts to facilitate” his return. If he returns, it must be within 200 miles of Baltimore, she ordered.

Subsequent status reports filed since her order are under seal, so it’s not clear what the precise state of play in the case is right now. Among the new filings is a sealed motion from the Justice Department asking Judge Gallagher to reconsider her TRO, so it looks the administration is still fighting to deport the man.

As it happens, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Mexican Foreign Secretary Roberto Velasco this morning at the State Department:

For Your Radar …

A federal judge in Brownsville said he would rule as soon as today after a hearing yesterday on Minnesota’s lawsuit to compel Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to extradite a fugitive ICE agent to charges related to a shooting during Operation Metro Surge.

Initial reports from the hearing suggest the judge is not inclined to grant Minnesota’s request to keep ICE agent Christian Castro in state custody in Texas, but it’s less clear whether the judge was favorably disposed to the broader extradition argument Minnesota was making:

At an hourlong hearing Tuesday in Brownsville, the judge said he was “not inclined” to order the Cameron County sheriff to continue holding Castro beyond Thursday, adding that a written order could come Wednesday.

The 90-day window that Texas has by law to hold Castro in custody on a nationwide arrest warrants ends this week. The Trump DOJ has sided with Abbott, who is making spurious legal arguments about why he doesn’t have to extradite Castro … at least not yet.

In related news that is rather puzzling, CNN reports that the Trump DOJ is considering bringing federal charges against Castro. DOJ originally charged the two immigrants involved in the incident with Castro, before the case fell apart amidst evidence that Castro and another agent had lied about the shooting.

No decision on charges has been made yet, DOJ told CNN, but officials in the DOJ Civil Rights Division have “held conversations” with federal prosecutors in Minnesota about the case.

A reminder that the Civil Rights Division is led by the boundary-less Trump loyalist Harmeet Dhillon.

Chicago Police Investigate CBP Shooting

A special unit within the Chicago Police Department is now investigating the shooting of Marimar Martinez by Border Patrol agent Charles Exum during Operation Midway Blitz. Martinez was shot five times in the Oct. 4 incident but survived and recently participate in a mass filing of complaints with police over the conduct of federal agents during the Chicago operation.

The Criminalizing of Protest

Two new pieces from TPM’s Josh Kovensky

• Civil Liberties Groups From Across Political Spectrum Denounce Trump’s NSPM-7
• Undercover DHS Agent Monitored Alex Pretti Memorial, New Docs Suggest

Immigration Officers Focus on Voter Fraud

Hundreds of immigration officers have been diverted from their normal duties to hunt down non-citizens who registered to vote as part of President Trump’s disinformation campaign to denigrate immigrants and delegitimize U.S. elections, the WaPo reports:

Fraud detection officers with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have been tasked with screening voter data to look for noncitizens who registered to vote, said the former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal security operations. The officers’ work screening immigration applications for false information and possible security threats has effectively ground to a halt, they said.

Elon Musk Off the Hook in Wisconsin

A local prosecutor has declined to bring charges against Elon Musk for his stunt during the state 2025 Supreme Court election of offering two $1 million checks to voters.

Trump DOJ Watch: Nevada Edition

A county Republican chair in Nevada is alleging that he is the victim of vindictive and selective prosecution by Sigal Chattah, the top federal prosecutor in the state and a GOP rival. Leo Blundo, a former county commissioner, also alleges that Chattah involved herself in his case despite an order from Main Justice for her to recuse herself:

Chattah’s role in Blundo’s case leading up to his March indictment for alleged pandemic loan fraud was one of multiple instances in which the first-time prosecutor and staunch Trump ally sought status updates from prosecutors despite warnings that she was disregarding her pledge to be walled off, Bloomberg Law reported earlier.

Bloomberg Law previously reported that Chattah “pushed to launch investigations at the behest of former clients and friends while repeatedly bypassing Justice Department orders recusing her from cases.

Last week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that Chattah was unlawfully installed as the top prosecutor in Las Vegas in a workaround designed to bypass Senate confirmation and federal judges.

Trump Destroyed USAID and Then …

The fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record, which is raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo, threatens to become the worst such outbreak in history, the WaPo reports.

Dolly Parton, 1946-2026

My favorite Dolly Parton story is actually three stories in one that she tells, all involving “I Will Always Love You“: Why she wrote it, why she refused to let Elvis record it, and her first time hearing the Whitney Houston version. It’s a window she offers beyond the vamp and the camp into herself as a songwriter at core with astute business sense. Self-serving? Perhaps. But I want to believe.

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