Another ICE mistake adds more cracks to Donald Trump's fragile deportation efforts

Washington D.C.: The Trump administration’s deportation efforts have led to another significant mistake—one it is now forced to acknowledge.

At the center of a class-action lawsuit is a Guatemalan asylum seeker, identified as O.C.G., who claims he was wrongfully deported to Mexico despite fearing persecution as a gay man.

Initially, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) attorneys argued that O.C.G. had no objection to being sent to Mexico. But in a recent court filing, ICE admitted it has no record of any officer actually confirming this with him. Instead, the claim appears to have been falsely entered into a database using a “software tool” that allows unsupported notes in asylum files.

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This admission could undermine the administration’s controversial “third country” deportation policy, which allows the U.S. to send asylum seekers to nations like El Salvador, Costa Rica, or even Libya—regardless of whether those countries are safe. O.C.G.’s case challenges this policy, arguing that he faced kidnapping, rape, and extortion in Mexico before being deported there.

A federal judge previously paused the “third country” deportations but refused to return O.C.G. to the U.S., citing ICE’s now-disputed claim. An appeals court has since upheld the temporary halt on deportations, though it does not resolve cases like O.C.G.’s, where individuals may have already been wrongly expelled.