A federal judge in Maryland has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a 20-year-old Venezuelan man deported to El Salvador, whose removal violated a previous court settlement, according to an order issued on Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, a Trump appointee, also ordered the government not to remove other individuals covered by the settlement.
The class action case from 2019 was filed on behalf of individuals who entered the U.S. as unaccompanied minors and later sought asylum.
The group sued the government to be able to have their asylum applications adjudicated while they remained in the United States. The parties settled in 2024.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs say the Trump administration, in breach of the settlement agreement, removed one of the class members — referred to using the pseudonym “Cristian” in court records — to El Salvador on March 15 when it deported three planeloads of alleged migrant gang members to the CECOT mega-prison there.
In an opinion filed Wednesday, Judge Gallagher referenced the case of wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and said that “like Judge [Paula] Xinis in the Abrego Garcia matter, this court will order Defendants to facilitate Cristian’s return to the United States so that he can receive the process he was entitled to under the parties’ binding Settlement Agreement.”
Hellbound and Down 