Court orders US government to return Colombian woman wrongly deported to DR Congo

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to return to the United States a Colombian woman who was deported to the Democratic Republic of Congo in a rare ruling.

Judge Richard J. Leon of the US District Court for District of Colombia said the Trump administration had most likely violated the law by deporting Adriana Maria Quiroz Zapata, 55, to DR Congo in April despite that country’s refusal to accept her.

The ruling was not yet listed in a public docket on Wednesday night, but it was shared with The New York Times by Zapata’s lawyer.

Judge Leon ordered the return of Adriana Maria Quiroz Zapata, 55, as soon as possible and asked the Trump administration to provide a status update by 5 p.m. Friday on steps taken to facilitate her return.

The case is a rare instance of a federal judge ordering the return of a migrant deported under President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown and comes as the administration faces backlash over its “third country” deportation policy, which deports immigrants to countries they have no ties to.

Quiroz Zapata was first placed into Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention after entering the US in August 2024, according to a court document shared by her lawyer, Lauren O’Neal. Quiroz Zapata had told The New York Times in an interview from the DRC that she fled Colombia to escape her former partner, a man tied to the Colombian national police.

A US immigration judge later granted her request not to be deported back to Colombia, finding it “more likely than not she will face torture by, or with the acquiescence of the Colombian government or their officials acting under the color of law,” the court document said.

As the Trump administration sought a third country to deport Quiroz Zapata, the DRC in April formally refused to accept her due to required medical assistance the country could not adequately guarantee, the document says.

Quiroz Zapata has diabetes, hyperlipidemia and hypothyroidism, O’Neal told the Times.

Two days after the DRC’s refusal, Quiroz Zapata was placed on a removal flight on April 16 from the US to the DRC, where she remains to this day, the document says.

“The Government sent her to the DRC anyway,” the judge wrote, adding that “sending (the) plaintiff to the DRC, therefore, was likely illegal.” The judge said that Quiroz Zapata “is likely to succeed” in her argument that sending her to the DRC “likely violates the Immigration and Nationality Act.”

“There is no question that plaintiff meets the standard for irreparable harm. She has been sent to a country that refused to accept her because they cannot provide sufficient medical care,” the judge wrote. “As a result, she faces a daily risk of medical complications, up to and including death.”

“Holding the executive branch to account is the only way to ensure proper oversight and put an end to the abuses of long-standing immigration law and regulations the agency is bound to abide,” O’Neal said in a statement to CNN.

In his ruling, the judge cited the case of Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who continues to fight against his deportation in court after being wrongfully deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador last year and then returned to the United States.

The highly-publicized Abrego Garcia case has been a sore spot for the Trump administration. Courts at every level of the federal judiciary said the mistake needed to be corrected, yet officials spent months resisting demands that they bring the father of three back to Maryland.

The US government continues to claim Abrego Garcia is a dangerous member of the MS-13 gang – which his family and lawyers deny.