A judge ordered the US to bring back a Colombian woman who was deported to the DRC despite Congo’s refusal to accept the 55-year-old woman.
The Donald Trump administration’s third-country deportation, a new policy that they have come up with where a migrant is sent to a third country where they have no connection, received a huge blow after a federal judge Wednesday ordered the administration to bring back a Colombian woman to the US. 55-year-old Adriana Maria Quiroz Zapata was sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo though the DRC refused to accept her. Judge Richard J Leon of the US District Court for DC ordered the return of the woman as soon as possible and ordered the Trump administration to provide a status update by 5 pm Friday on steps taken to facilitate her return, the New York Times reported.Quiroz Zapata entered the US in August 2024 fleeing Colombia and her former partner, a man tied to the Colombian national police. She got a court order that she would not be deprted back to Colombia as she was likely to face persecution back home. As the Trump administration sought a third country to deport Quiroz Zapata, the DRC in April formally refused to accept her due to the required medical assistance the country could not adequately guarantee, the document says. The woman has diabetes, hyperlipidemia and hypothyroidism.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 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.”
