A US federal judge ordered the US government on August 21 to take back a Mexican man the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had deported to Mexico based on a diplomatic assurance from the Mexican government that he wouldn’t be harmed. An immigration judge had previously found the man to have a significant chance of being tortured if returned to Mexico and thus granted him “deferral of removal.”
According to a New York Times report, the man had helped US law enforcement authorities by testifying against Mexican cartels, testimony that would put his life in danger if returned. Given the brutal power of the cartels, the Mexican government’s assurances in this case are downright phantasmic.
In fact, diplomatic assurances regarding torture are not worth the paper they’re printed on. These are formal promises by one government to another about how well they will treat a person being deported or extradited. Torture is a serious crime, often taking place in dark corners: police station basements, prison holding cells, or remote border checkpoints. Nearly all countries – 176 in total – have signed the Convention against Torture and no government admits to torturing or condoning torture.
Previously, the Trump administration told US courts that the Venezuelans it sent to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador would not be tortured because of Salvadoran government assurances that it wouldn’t torture them. Our report, “You Have Arrived in Hell,” described in detail the torture they experienced.
DHS went to extraordinary lengths to deport the man. According to the Times report, after failing a number of times to remove him through various deportation channels, including deporting him to Guatemala, the Trump administration allegedly served him with a termination notice of his deferral of removal after the State Department received the Mexican government’s assurances. He was deported to Mexico on August 1 and is now in hiding out of fear that “the cartels that he provided information against will find him and torture or kill him before he can return to the United States,” according to the August 21 court order.
As this man huddles in fear and the Trump administration prepares to send hundreds of thousands of Haitians to another country beset by severe violence, the government’s callous disregard for the lives of the people it deports cannot be papered over with so-called diplomatic assurances.
