Judge orders U.S. to return Honduran man deported without due process

A federal judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security to facilitate the return of Jose Eliezer Martinez-Andino after finding he was likely removed without due process. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said Martinez-Andino had been “removed from this country in a manner that boggles the mind,” and directed the government to act immediately so his case could be handled as if he had not been improperly sent to Honduras.

Martinez-Andino, 20, had no criminal history. He was detained in Montana in March as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, then moved between at least six detention centers in different states. Howell said he was denied contact with his attorneys for more than ten days, and that neither Immigration and Customs Enforcement nor U.S. Customs and Border Protection would tell his lawyers where he was or which agency held him, despite repeated requests. In the judge’s description, he had “seemingly disappeared.”

The case turned on Martinez-Andino’s earlier immigration history. He entered the United States in 2020 at age 14 and was deemed an unaccompanied minor. A judge later dismissed his removal proceedings after finding that he had an approved application for a Special Immigrant Juvenile Visa. That background made Howell’s order more pointed, because the court found he had already been through a process that should have protected him from being removed in the way he was.

The Department of Homeland Security pushed back sharply. It said Border Patrol arrested Martinez-Andino on March 18 and described him as an “illegal alien from Honduras” who had entered through Mexico on an unknown date. DHS also said Border Patrol encountered him in September 2020, released him into the country, issued a voluntary return, and said he departed the country on April 13.

Howell also invoked the separate case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, using it as a warning that the government must move quickly when a court finds a removal was unlawful and a return is needed to preserve due process.