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The Guatemalan man deported in error is known only as OCG.
“I am the smallest version of myself because I have so much more fear, the man told a Massachusetts district court.
A gay Guatemalan man deported by the Trump administration despite legal protections is begging a federal court to intervene, describing in a sworn declaration on Thursday how he now lives in hiding, terrified he’ll be killed for his identity.
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“My mother and cousins and other relatives have been helping me out so that I don’t have to go outside very much,” the man, identified as O.C.G., wrote. “I live in fear because of the past hateful incidences I experienced.”
Related: Jon Lovett and Tim Miller team up to ‘raise hell’ over gay asylum-seeker vanished to El Salvador by Trump
The declaration, part of the class-action lawsuitD.V.D. v. DHS in the District of Massachusetts, comes days after the administration admitted it has no record that O.C.G. was ever asked if he feared deportation to Mexico—a country where he was previously raped and held captive. The government had claimed he said he wasn’t afraid. However, in a May 19 filing, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials acknowledged: “Defendants cannot identify any officer who asked O.C.G. whether he had a fear of return to Mexico.”
Instead of offering a remedy, the administration insists his removal was proper, stating in court documents that “he received notice.”
O.C.G.’s attorneys call that a distortion. “Instead of contrition for their misrepresentations, Defendants attempt to confuse the Court,” they wrote, arguing that the administration gave him no opportunity to contest deportation to a third country not named in his case.
Related: Gay asylum-seeker's lawyer worries for the makeup artist's safety in Salvadoran ‘hellhole’ prison
According to the complaint, in February, an immigration judge granted O.C.G. protection from deportation to Guatemala. Days later, ICE loaded him onto a bus and sent him to Mexico—without a hearing. Mexican authorities then deported him to Guatemala, where he’s now in hiding.
“I wear hats and try to camouflage myself so that no one recognizes me and sees that I have returned,” he wrote. “Living a normal life is impossible here.”
His case echoes at least two others. Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia, deported to El Salvador’s CECOT prison despite a judicial order, remains missing. Andry Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan makeup artist, was disappeared to the same prison after a CoreCivic contractor misidentified his tattoos as gang-related. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has refused to confirm whether Hernández Romero is still alive.
“I can’t be gay here, which means I cannot be myself,” O.C.G. told the court. “I am the smallest version of myself because I have so much more fear.”
