A federal judge appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump is not budging in his demand that the government “facilitate” a deported Venezuelan man’s return to the United States.

In the case, Daniel Lozano-Camargo, 20, was “wrongfully” deported to El Salvador in violation of a legal settlement agreement that was meant to keep him in the country while his pending asylum claim was litigated with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Notably, the plaintiff has filed his case under the pseudonym “Cristian,” but Politico reported his full identity on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the court itself, in line with a prior order binding the parties, is continuing to use the pseudonym.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, cited contract law principles in a 19-page opinion directing the government to try and get Lozano-Camargo back stateside “so that he can receive the process he was entitled to under the parties’ binding Settlement Agreement.”

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On Monday, the government filed sealed arguments in an attempt to convince the judge to vacate her order. Along with those mysterious legal arguments, the government publicly filed a heavily redacted “Indicative Asylum Decision.”

The government’s public formal document explains why the Trump administration believes Lozano-Camargo’s underlying asylum claim will fail.

During a hearing on Tuesday, however, the judge said the asylum case is too far removed from the current legal dispute to be dispositive.

“I don’t think that this is a case about whether or not Cristian is going to eventually get asylum,” Gallagher said, according to a courtroom report by Politico. “Whether he ultimately receives asylum is not the issue. The issue is, and has always been, one of process.”

The issue, rather, is a 2024 settlement that limits how people who came to the country as unaccompanied minors can be deported, according to the judge. In Lozano-Camargo’s case, because he came to the U.S. when he was 17, that court-approved agreement means the government must wait until his asylum claim is extinguished.

“It is an axiomatic principle of contract law that when a defendant breaches a contract, that defendant must restore the situation that existed before the breach,” Gallagher wrote. “In the case of Cristian, this requires putting him in the position ‘to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.’ In other words, under contract law principles, Cristian, and any other Class Member who has been removed in violation of the Settlement Agreement, must be returned to the United States to await adjudication of his asylum application on the merits by USCIS.”

An accompanying April 23 order explains, in relevant part:

Defendants are hereby ORDERED to facilitate Class Member Cristian’s return to the United States to await the adjudication of his asylum application on the merits by USCIS under the terms of the Settlement Agreement. Facilitation includes, but is not limited to, a good faith request by Defendants to the government of El Salvador to release Cristian to U.S. custody for transport back to the United States.

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Immigration Law

‘It’s Time for You to Leave’: More immigration lawyers get notices to self-deport

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 25, 2025, 9:32 am CDT

Immigration lawyers outside Massachusetts are also receiving notices to self-deport, despite their U.S. citizenship.

Among the lawyers receiving notices are Austin, Texas, lawyer Hubert Montoya and Salt Lake City lawyer Carlos Trujillo, according to Fortune, KTVX and the Utah News Dispatch.

“It’s time for you to leave,” the notices said.

Immigration lawyers in Ohio, Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania have also reported receiving the notices, according to the Utah News Dispatch.

Montoya told Fortune that he laughed when he received the notice.

“I just thought it was absurd,” he said.

Trujillo told the Utah News Dispatch that he has advocated for the immigrant community, but he refuses to think that it is the reason for the notice.

“It probably was a mistake, and I love this country so much that I think my first inclination is just to believe that and leave it at that,” he said.

The notices are part of a what appears to be a mass email campaign telling immigrants that the immigration parole allowing them to temporarily live in the United States has been revoked, according to the Utah News Dispatch.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is canceling paroles that allowed people who entered the United States using an online appointment app to remain in the country for two years, according to previous reporting by the Associated Press. The Trump administration has suspended use of the app.

The Department of Homeland Security sent notices to email addresses provided by the immigrants, including, in some cases, email addresses of U.S. citizens they listed as contacts, according to a statement by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Some of the notices may have been sent to lawyers and other unintended recipients, the agency told Fortune.

The notices being sent are not limited to people who used the appointment app, according to a Customs and Border Protection statement cited by the Utah News Dispatch.

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Lawyers for the families of two children with U.S. citizenship, including a 4-year-old who has Stage 4 cancer, have accused the Trump administration of deporting the youths to Honduras on the same day another child with citizenship was allegedly sent to the Central American country, which led to an order from a federal judge requiring the government to explain itself.

President Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, went on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday and insisted that “no U.S. citizen child” had been deported. He claimed that “deported means ordered by an immigration judge” and suggested that the mothers may have chosen to take the children with them, saying: “That’s a parent’s decision. It’s not a government decision, it’s a parent’s decision.”

Reports emerged late Saturday and Sunday from The Washington Post and New York Times saying the 4-year-old and a 7-year-old had also been shipped out Friday with the child that led to the judge’s memorandum in federal court.

As Law&Crime previously reported, a federal judge in Louisiana known for his rulings that tend to align with causes championed by Trump issued a memorandum order Friday setting a hearing to address the apparent deportation of a 2-year-old identified only as V.M.L. According to a petition for a writ of habeas corpus — a request that court determine whether a person’s detention is unlawful — V.M.L. was born in 2023 in Baton Rouge, as indicated on her birth certificate.

Lawyers for the mother of the 2-year-old told the Times that she and the other two kids were all deported to Honduras Friday. The Times reports that the mother of the 2-year-old is pregnant, while the 4-year-old from the other family has a rare form of late-stage cancer. The boy allegedly had no access to his medications or his doctors during the removal process, the lawyers say.

Gracie Willis, a lawyer with the National Immigration Project who is reportedly involved in the case involving the 2-year-old, has condemned the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and local law officials as being both “horrifying and baffling” as the children are all considered “U.S. citizen” children.

Homan, however, says the government sees things differently.

“Having a U.S. citizen child after you enter this country illegally is not a get-out-of-jail free card,” he told “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

“It doesn’t make you immune from our laws,” Homan said. “If that’s the message we sent the entire world, women are gonna keep putting themselves at risk and come to this country. We send a message. You can enter [the] country illegally, which is a crime. That’s okay. You can have due process, great taxpayer expense. Get ordered removed. That’s okay. Don’t leave. But have a U.S. citizen child and you’re immune from removal? That’s not the way it works.”

Speaking to NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that if the children’s families want them to come back to the U.S. that they will be allowed to “if there’s their father or someone here who wants to assume them” in the United States.

“Ultimately, who was deported … was their mothers, who were here illegally,” Rubio said. “The children just went with their mothers. But it wasn’t like — you guys make it sound like ICE agents kicked down the door and grabbed the 2-year-old and threw him on an airplane. That’s misleading.”

A representative “next friend” of the 2-year-old, who says she has known her since birth, has filed a motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to block the child’s removal, accusing ICE of engaging in “attempts to disappear” V.M.L. and lying to the child’s family and representatives in the process.

At the time the TRO motion was filed, the girl’s representatives believed she was still in the U.S.

In its opposition to the TRO request, ICE said the girl’s mother wanted to take V.M.L. with her back to Honduras, and provided as proof a note written by hand in Spanish. Just like Homan and Rubio, the government also signaled skepticism that the child’s “next friend,” as well as V.M.L.’s father, were indeed who they said they were, saying they have not provided identification to ICE in support of releasing the child into their custody.

In Friday’s order, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty — appointed by Trump in 2018 — said that V.M.L. is “ostensibly” a 2-year-old United States citizen.

“Of course, ‘It is illegal and unconstitutional to deport, detain for deportation, or recommend deportation of a U.S. citizen,”” Doughty concluded.

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Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this report. 

“May you live in interesting times.” For immigration lawyers, that old proverb is now a reality. Ever since the start of the second Trump administration, immigration lawyers have been busier than ever.

Whether it is dealing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, deportations, executive orders slowing down the visa process, limiting birthright citizenship, rescinding Obama- and Biden-era immigration policies, or nervous clients worried about what the new regime might mean for them, immigration lawyers have plenty on their plates.

Technology, particularly generative artificial intelligence, can help with some of that increased workload.

In this episode of the Legal Rebels Podcast, Greg Siskind, an immigration lawyer and a tech enthusiast, talks to the ABA Journal’s Victor Li. They talk about how tech can help immigration lawyers work more efficiently, as well as just how much has changed in the immigration landscape since January.

Siskind is a founding partner at the law firm Siskind Susser and a co-founder of Visalaw.ai, a tech company that creates AI-powered software for immigration lawyers. He is also a 2024 ABA Journal Legal Rebel.

See also:

How technology can improve immigration policy and practice