Today I talk to you about a new decision by federal district judge Brian Murphy in Massachusetts involving O.C.G. (an acronym permitted by the court to protect the plaintiff from retaliation). Murphy found that O.C.G. was extracted to Mexico, without due process, and after an immigration hearing in which he was informed he could not be sent to Mexico, at least without further due process. Nevertheless he was sent there just two days later by the Trump Administration.
But it gets worse. The Trump Administration filed with Judge Murphy a declaration that O.C.G. admitted he was okay being sent to Mexico, something that O.C.G. and his counsel disputed as false.
Just hours before the government had to submit to a deposition so that plaintiff could test its assertion, the Trump Administration admitted its claim was made in “error.”
I discuss all this in this video, and the court’s numerous findings against the government.
Facts matter. Stay engaged.
–Andrew
P.S. The YouTube link can be found here.
TRANSCRIPT
Hi, folks.
I wanted to talk to you about a case in Massachusetts.
It’s the D.V.D. case.
It’s an acronym.
It’s decided by Brian Murphy, a federal district judge, and it involves a plaintiff called OCG, again, an acronym for reasons that will become clear today.
The reason this case is so interesting is that this is a case that is very, very similar to Abrego Garcia, the man who is still in El Salvador. But in many ways, it is even worse. I know that’s hard to imagine.
Let me give the bottom line up front that on May 23rd, the judge has ordered that he be returned, that they facilitate his return with a caveat, noting that he thinks that this is not like Abrego Garcia, that this really has to happen. He has to be returned here and there’s no reason for him not to be returned here. That’s the bottom line.
But the reason I say it’s worse is because not only has the judge found that OCG was removed and extracted from this country unlawfully, but that there was false evidence given to the court that to make the court think that the plaintiff had essentially consented to that removal.
And so the court addresses that in various ways. And I want to read from this decision because it is so important for people to understand what our government is doing and what it is not doing. And what is happening because facts matter.
Okay, let me talk to you about specifically what is going on here.
I’m going to do my best Rachel Maddow imitation of reading from this.
Plaintiff OCG has no known criminal history. After suffering multiple violent attacks, OCG sought protection in the United States where an immigration judge granted him withholding of removal, meaning he couldn’t be removed, back to his native country, Guatemala.
This means that the immigration judge found it more likely than not that OCG would suffer serious harm if sent back to Guatemala.
Here’s the kicker. Two days later, and without any notice, OCG was placed on a bus and sent to Mexico, and that is italicized, a country where he was previously held for ransom and raped.
OCG has said during his immigration proceedings that he was afraid of being sent to Mexico and even presented evidence of the violence he had experienced there. But the immigration judge told OCG, consistent with this court’s understanding of the law, that he could not be removed to a country other than his native Guatemala, at least not without some additional steps in the process.
And by the way, the court also notes that during the immigration proceeding, the government lawyer at the time agreed that this was only about going to Guatemala, that this is not about sending somebody to Mexico.
Okay, now here’s just to continue.
Those necessary steps and OCG’s pleas for help were ignored. As a result, OCG was given up to Mexico, which then sent him back to Guatemala, where he remains in hiding today, two days after an immigration judge found this.
By the way, immigration judges are within the executive branch of the government, so this is not exactly an unfriendly forum for this executive branch.
Here’s another kicker. Last week, on May 16th, 2025, defendants acknowledged an error, an error is in air quotes—actually, it’s in quotes. I’m using it in air quotes. Defendants acknowledged an error in their previous filings and statements to the court.
Defendants admitted hours before the scheduled deposition of the witness who could allegedly verify the facts included in the prior declaration made under oath that in fact there was no such witness and therefore no reliable basis for the statements put forward by defendants.
Those statements included that the ICE agent were saying that the plaintiff said that he had no fear of being sent to Mexico. That’s the statement that the defendants claimed that the OCG had made.
Just wait for it.
Defendants apparently cannot find a witness to support their claim that OCG ever said that he was unafraid of being sent to Mexico. The only evidence before the court, therefore, is OCG’s uncontroverted assertion that he was given no notice of his transfer to Mexico and no opportunity to explain why it would be dangerous to send him there.
Defendants’ retraction of their prior sworn statement makes an inexorable—sorry—the already strong conclusion that OCG is likely to succeed in showing that his removal lacked any semblance of due process, and it therefore alleviates concerns that the court has as the appropriateness of relief.
Accordingly, plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction is granted.
It should be noted that the court has ordered discovery into two things.
One, into finding out how it is that this declaration was given to the court, saying the false information that the plaintiff had somehow made this statement about not being afraid of going to Mexico. The court wants to find out how that happened.
The second thing that happened is that the government filed papers that included the full actual name of OCG, which was against the court order that acronyms be used. That appears to have been a mistake.
Steps have been taken to remedy that according to the court’s decision, but the court wants to find out how that happened.
So those are two fundamental errors, and particularly given the concern that the plaintiff has said and testified to about fear of retaliation, both in Mexico and in Guatemala, having his real name out there would exacerbate that, even if it were a mistake and not intentional.
The thing that seems much more troubling is the idea that you would have a statement saying, this is what the plaintiff said, and it turns out just hours before the deposition that was being ordered to find out more about that and to have the person say exactly what happened, the government comes back and says, we can’t say, we can no longer support that.
So that seems like it, you know, it easily could just be a lie. I mean, it’s possible it’s a mistake, but it’s possible it’s an intentional misstatement, intentional lie to the court that, with devastating, devastating consequences.
And so the court goes on to talk about the facts, what the plaintiff has said about what he experienced in Guatemala, what he has experienced in Mexico, how he’s in hiding to this day that he can’t visit with his family, he can’t see his mother while he’s there because he’s hiding so that he’s not retaliated against.
And then the court has a very interesting footnote. It’s footnote 10, where the court, as I mentioned, orders that the government facilitate his return. But it says this case is different than Abrego Garcia.
Here, the court notes that facilitate in this context should carry less baggage than in several other notable cases. OCG is not held by any foreign government because he’s not in prison in Guatemala.
Defendants have declined to make any argument that facilitating his return would be costly, burdensome, or otherwise impede the government’s objectives.
The court anticipates that defendants will take at least the same level of action as is routine to return lawfully removed aliens. And then he cites an ICE policy, which is about returning to the United States certain lawfully removed aliens. That’s a policy from 2012.
Given that this court has found that plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing that OCG’s removal was not lawful, there is no reason for defendants to take less action than they would when returning a lawfully removed alien.
And the court goes on to cite cases where the government has, in fact, been ordered to and has returned people from foreign countries to this country, something that they’re refusing to do in the Abrego Garcia case, but the court is saying here in footnote 10, this is why this case is different and should be easier for the government.
What remains to be seen is whether the government will appeal this. It’s a hideous, hideous factual record for them to take up to the First Circuit or even the Supreme Court, given what happened here.
This is really the government at its absolute worst, a violation of due process and what may in fact be making deliberate false statements to the court. At the very least, sort of reckless statements, I would think, I mean, it’s hard to see how it’s anything less than that when you put in this kind of verification and everyone agrees, the government agrees that in fact was false.
The only issue was with the level of culpability of the government in doing this.
So it remains to be seen whether this is complied with by this administration, but I wanted to bring it to your attention because this is a case that’s like Abrego-Garcia, but in many ways is worse.
I know it’s hard to imagine, but this is what our current administration is doing.
This puts real color and meat on the bones and it allows us to see that due process is not some abstract principle, and of course, an important principle, but you can see what happens when our government denies due process to people and what’s actually happening on the ground.
And judges willing to stand up and push back and say that the Constitution matters.
So again, thank you so much for listening.
Facts matter.
Stay engaged.
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