Asylum Seeker Deported Twice to El Salvador Drops Return Bid

A 19-year-old asylum seeker whom the government deported twice to El Salvador in violation of federal court orders has told a Maryland judge he no longer wants to come back. His lawyers in J.O.P. v. DHS, the class action that protects asylum seekers first processed as unaccompanied children, said in an Oct. 16 filing that the young man, identified as E.L.A., “no longer believes it is in his interest to return,” Bloomberg Law reported on Oct. 19, because the government has opposed both a decision on the merits of his asylum claim and his release from detention if he returned.

Less than a month ago, U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher held the Department of Homeland Security in contempt over his second removal and ordered him brought back. E.L.A.’s decision shows how much a court-ordered return depends on what is waiting at the other end of the flight.

Two removals, one settlement

The J.O.P. settlement, approved in November 2024, resolved a 2019 challenge to a USCIS policy under which asylum officers reassessed whether young people first classified as unaccompanied children still fit that definition, and declined to hear their cases if they did not. Under the agreement, USCIS keeps initial jurisdiction over eligible class members’ asylum applications, and ICE agreed not to carry out removal orders while those applications await a USCIS decision, according to court records and Newsweek’s account of the case.

E.L.A. was removed anyway, twice. A DHS spokesperson told Newsweek he entered the country illegally in 2023 and was deported on March 13, 2026. He was flown back on Aug. 7, by class counsel’s account, so his asylum case could proceed, and was being held in Louisiana while preparing for an asylum interview when ICE removed him again in September. DHS says he asked for voluntary departure at an ICE field office. Government lawyers conceded the second removal was improper and blamed miscommunication, Bloomberg Law reported.

Judge Gallagher’s Sept. 25 order found violations of three earlier court orders and directed DHS to return him, give back his property and documents, refrain from executing any removal order until USCIS decides his asylum application or the settlement expires, and give at least five business days’ notice, with its legal authority, before any future removal attempt. It was the second contempt finding in the case this year, according to Bloomberg Law. The order did not bar ICE from detaining him again.

Why the return order was not enough

The contempt order protected E.L.A. from a third removal but not from detention, and it did not settle whether his asylum claim would survive. In September, government lawyers told the court he would not return without assurances that his application would not be terminated over biometrics appointments he missed last year, Bloomberg Law reported. The Oct. 16 filing, as Bloomberg Law described it, points the other way: the government opposed a merits decision and his release.

The practical choice is stark. Asylum under section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act is available only to people physically present in the United States or arriving at its border, so staying in El Salvador effectively ends the claim the settlement was meant to protect. Returning would have meant detention and the risk that the application ends on a procedural ground before anyone weighs his fear of persecution.

The case has been here before. In April 2025, Judge Gallagher found that ICE’s removal of another class member, a Venezuelan man identified as Cristian who was removed in March 2025 under the Alien Enemies Act proclamation, violated the settlement, and she ordered the government to facilitate his return. Court records show that in November 2025 she declined to find probable cause for criminal contempt, in part because the State Department, which could communicate with El Salvador, was not a party, while leaving the return order in force if he sought to come back. In both cases, an order to bring someone back ran into limits outside the courtroom.

What comes next

The withdrawal does not erase the contempt finding, and Judge Gallagher’s full reasoning remains in a memorandum that was sealed pending redactions when the order issued. The open question is whether the court treats E.L.A.’s decision as the end of his part of the case or as further evidence that the settlement’s protections can be emptied out after the fact. The answer will shape what the next return order is worth. Other class members, meanwhile, have a concrete warning: a missed biometrics appointment can become the ground on which the settlement’s protection is fought.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

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Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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