A U.S. appeals court will review the Trump administration’s bid to avoid returning a 20-year-old Venezuelan asylum seeker who was deported to El Salvador earlier this year, keeping him in Salvadoran custody for now.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed last week to take up Trump’s appeal – staying through May 15 a lower court’s ruling that required the Trump administration to immediately return him to U.S. soil.
The appeals court also ordered plaintiffs in the case to submit their response to the court before noon on Monday. The Trump administration will have through 9 a.m. Tuesday to respond.
At issue is the case of Daniel Lozano-Camargo, a 20-year-old Venezuelan national previously referred to in court documents as “Cristian,” who was deported to El Salvador in March in the Trump administration’s early wave of Alien Enemies Act removals.
FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS RETURN OF DEPORTED MIGRANT TO US, REJECTING TRUMP REQUEST
More than 250 individuals deported from the U.S. to El Salvador arrive by plane to the country, including alleged members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang, and members of the MS-13 gang, to be processed in the country’s CECOT maximum security prison. (El Salvador Presidency / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, a Trump appointee, ruled in April that his deportation violated an agreement the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) struck in 2024 with Lozano-Camargo and a group of young asylum seekers who had entered the U.S. as unaccompanied children.
Under that agreement, DHS agreed not to deport the migrants in question until their requests for asylum could be fully adjudicated in U.S. court. Last month, Gallagher said Lozano-Camargo’s deportation was a “breach of contract,” since his asylum case had not yet been heard, and ordered the U.S. government to facilitate his release.
A federal judge had ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to facilitate the return of a migrant deported to El Salvador. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
She reiterated that decision in court last week, rejecting a new filing from the Justice Department that said it had determined Lozano-Camargo was eligible for removal under the law, citing his earlier arrest and conviction for cocaine possession in Houston this year.
Justice Department officials claimed in earlier court documents that Lozano-Camargo was a member of a “violent terrorist gang” but have not linked him to Tren de Aragua. Portions of their most…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at FOX News : Politics…