ICE continues to be increasingly awful as it chases arrest and deportation quotas it will never meet. The administration’s desire to rid this nation of as many migrants as possible is generating new nastiness on a daily basis.
This bit of hideousness will likely have been subsumed several times over by the time you read this, but that doesn’t mean it should pass by unnoticed. The “worst of the worst” applies more to ICE officers and officials than it does to most of the people it sweeps up. This case is no exception. (h/t Kyle Cheney)
Guatemalan native Faustino Pablo Pablo has been in the United States since 2012, following all the rules of the lengthy asylum process. He received a ruling from a US immigration judge that said it “more likely than not” he would be “tortured” by (or with the permission of) the Guatemalan government if he was forced to return. The ruling made it clear Pablo Pablo could be removed to another country but was absolutely not to be sent back to Guatemala.
From 2013 to 2025, Pablo Pablo complied with every aspect of his order or release, including making regular check-ins to ICE’s ERO (Enforcement and Removal Operations) office. Then this happened:
On November 5, 2025, ICE detained Pablo Pablo at a “regular check-in appointment” without notice or explanation. Pablo Pablo’s attorney promptly contacted ICE to share, inter alia, receipt of his withholding of removal to Guatemala. On November 17, 2025, the Enforcement and Removal Operations (“ERO”) component of ICE transported Pablo Pablo to El Paso, Texas, “for staging of removal to Guatemala.”
That from the recent order [PDF] issued by federal judge David Guaderrama. The judge definitely isn’t happy with ICE, which is hardly surprising since the government basically admits it did the wrong thing willfully.
Once it became clear Pablo Pablo was challenging his (illegal) deportation, ICE accelerated the removal process:
On November 20, 2025, [Pablo Pablo] filed an additional motion, asking that Respondents be enjoined from transferring him outside of the Western District of Texas during the pendency of his habeas petition. The same day, at 5:00 AM MST, ICE transported Pablo Pablo to the airport. At 6:00 AM, ICE placed him on a flight direct to Guatemala By the time the Court orderedRespondents not to remove Pablo Pablo, he had arrived in Guatemala City.
That led to the court demanding some answers from the government. And while the government was responsive (in the legal sense), it doesn’t appear to be all that concerned about Pablo Pablo’s whereabouts or well-being.
Respondents conceded that Pablo Pablo “was subject to withholding of removal to Guatemala at the time he was removed, and therefore the physical removal was unlawful.” To rectify the error, Respondents stated that Pablo Pablo’s return flight had been “tentatively scheduled” for December 4, 2025.23 On December 4, 2025, Respondents provided an update that “Petitioner was not returned to the United States.” As far as the Court is aware, Pablo Pablo currently remains in Guatemala.
But then the government argued that the judge no longer had jurisdiction over Pablo Pablo’s habeas petition because… the government no longer had custody of Pablo Pablo. This is ridiculous, says the judge.
For reasons squarely outside of Pablo Pablo’s control, his attention has shifted from challenging his detention to challenging the blatant lawlessness of his removal. In other words, “[t]he removal itself lies at the heart of the wrongs.”
You’ll notice the words “blatant lawlessness of his removal” are not in quotes. This is a judge talking directly to ICE and the government’s legal reps, telling them exactly what he thinks about their actions. This isn’t an indirect slam cribbed from precedent.
And the judge is right to be angry. As Kyle Cheney’s report for Politico notes, this is something ICE has been doing repeatedly since the beginning of Trump’s second term.
The administration has acknowledged several other improper deportations, including a man sent to El Salvador despite a court-approved settlement agreement barring his deportation while his asylum claim was pending, a man who was sent to Mexico despite immigration officials’ acknowledgment that they had no record of a “credible fear” interview to determine whether he might face persecution, a man deported to El Salvador — where he remains incarcerated — despite a federal appeals court order barring his deportation, and a transgender woman deported to Mexico despite an immigration court order finding she was likely to be tortured there.
And even though the government admitted it had engaged in a “blatantly unlawful” removal when questioned by the court, the DHS remains defiant. Assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin issued a statement that basically says that Pablo Pablo is more wrong than ICE is:
“This illegal alien from Guatemala has a final order of removal from an immigration judge issued in 2015. He received full due process. One thing is certain: he is not going to be able to remain in the U.S. We will deport him to another country.”
McLaughlin also said this in her statement, which yet again undercuts the “worst of worst” narrative that gets trotted out every time ICE starts ramping up raids.
If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a criminal with a lengthy rap sheet or someone who spent more than a decade here doing everything the government asked of him and, apparently, being a law-abiding non-citizen. Either way, this administration wants you gone.
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