Judge orders return of Honduran migrant deported to Central African Republic
One month after a Honduran migrant was deported to a country in Africa that is not his country of origin, a federal judge in Colorado has ordered the U.S. government to return him to the United States.
U.S. District Judge Regina Rodriguez ordered federal authorities to return Brayan Omar Sanchez Servellon, who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in May and deported to the Central African Republic last month.
The federal judge ordered the Honduran immigrant to be returned to Colorado and released "on his own recognizance along with all his personal belongings, without onerous conditions of release, including, without limitation, GPS monitoring, mandatory reporting, or other restrictions on his movement."
Sanchez Servellon is one of roughly 25,000 people deported to so-called third countries during the Trump administration's ongoing immigration crackdown, according to the advocacy group Human Rights First. Third-country deportations are the removal of immigrants to a foreign nation where they do not hold citizenship or have personal ties.
ABC News spoke last week to a group of Latin American immigrants who were deported to the Central African Republic and said they were dismayed the U.S. government would send them to a place that it warns its own citizens against visiting. A U.S. Department of State travel advisory warns Americans not to travel there due to risks of unrest, crime, kidnapping, landmines, health issues, and terrorism.
According to court documents, Sanchez Servellon had lived in the U.S. since 2016. In 2020, an immigration judge issued a final order of removal to Honduras but granted him protection under the Convention Against Torture, blocking federal authorities from sending him back to his native country.
In court filings, Sanchez Servellon stated that "the circumstances in the Central African Republic are dangerous and that he cannot speak the language." He has since posted videos on TikTok detailing his deportation.
"Thank you to everyone, thank God," Sanchez Servellon said in a video posted online over the weekend.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
The Immigration and Nationality Act allows the Department of Homeland Security to deport migrants to third countries when authorities establish that the individuals could face persecution in their origin country or if that country cannot accept them.
According to immigration lawyers and advocates, third-country removals are rare, though not new. In recent months, the Trump administration has expanded third-country deportations following formal agreements with nearly three dozen nations to deport asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants with criminal records with little to no notice.
Some of the new destinations include Liberia, Ghana, the Central African Republic and Sierra Leone.
